Homework

Ten Perfections of the Heart – A Year of Practice – Month 1 (1/11/2025) Home Practices: Gratitude & Generosity
Next class: Friday, 2/14/25 – 6:00 – 8:30 PM  ET

Click here for a PDF version of the home practices

1. Sit every day. Try sitting for a minimum of 15 -30 minutes per day (more if able). Please practice your meditation in silence. If you use an app, try silence several times a week.
2. Ajahn Sucitto’s book: Pāramī: Ways to Cross Life’s Floods, will be our shared text. Please read, “Crossing the Floods” starting on page 11-29 & Generosity 31-40. Link here.
3. Setting A Year Long Intention, Vow, Dedication: Finish writing your year long intention, vow, dedication. (What is my motivation in the Ten Perfections of Heart-A Year of practice? What is my aspiration in life? What is my intention/vow right now?) Then put it someplace where you keep special things. Then, as you go through the year, let it be your compass, your underlying direction, in spite of changing outer circumstances. Let it carry you.
4. The Paramis-
   • Read this list every day: Generosity, Virtue or morality, Renunciation or letting go, Discernment or wisdom, Energy, Patience, Truthfulness, Resolve, Loving-Kindness, Equanimity and Gratitude
   • Ask yourself each day, “What is going to take me you out of stress, discontent right now?” Listen for the answer.
   • Initially one brings the topic to mind – this is helpful and useful – it means that the parami gets built-in as a frame of reference. Do your best to build in Gratitude & Generosity.
   • The gathering stage is when you apply the parami in the face of its opposition. (Something in you doesn’t want to bother, other people don’t see the point, not convenient to do so) Do your best to apply Gratitude & Generosity in the face of opposition.
5. Gratitude Parami Practices
   • Gratitude is appreciation, thankfulness, gratefulness. Gratitude is the capacity to take delight in life, in this moment in being alive! Gratitude is the ability to let ourselves feel joy and wonder. Our life rests on the lives of so many lives.
   • Until buddy groups are formed, write down in a journal or word document or say them out loud to yourself. 3 gratitude’s each day. When you know your group from CIMC, Text or e-mail your buddies 3 things you are grateful for each day. Can be anything.
6. Generosity Parami Reflections & Practices
   • Dana Is the Pali word for generosity or giving. Dana refers specifically to taking delight in giving. To recall acts of generosity is not conceited or egotistical-rather we can use it to see all the choices in the world. To see that we care about ourselves and others to make a skillful choice. We give rather than hold on. We give up rather than hoard. We let go rather than cling. To delight in choices is to delight in goodness.
   • Reflections for yourself and to discuss in Buddy Groups before next class:
     • Reflect on your attitudes and beliefs about generosity which were likely conditioned by how generosity was viewed and practices in your family or culture. What are your beliefs about generosity? Do you have beliefs that interfere with being generous and what beliefs interfere with acting on your impulses to be generous? Consider the validity, usefulness of these beliefs.
     • Contemplate the ways that it benefits you to be generous to someone else.
     • Reflect on your attitudes, beliefs & feelings about receiving generosity
   • Practices for yourself and to discuss in Buddy Groups before next class:
     • When you have the thought to be generous, simply, do it. Notice what happens next. What feelings arise? What thoughts arise? Then pay attention as you give. What feelings arise? What thoughts arise? Finally, after you have been generous (or after you have not been generous) What feelings arise? What thoughts arise? Try exploring different ways of being generous. (caring, time, energy, service) Explore what is the motivation underlying the moment of generosity? Look in the day for what undermines the motivation.“ Generosity becomes stronger and more delightful the more we engage in it.”-Joseph Goldstein.
       Below Practices (pick at least 2 during this month cartwheels if try all)
     • For 15 minutes a few times each week, try offering respectful attention to everyone you meet or talk to. Take the other person’s point of view. Let the person: in, the zoom room, your home, a friend, your neighbor, roommate, child, partner- be the most important person around. Give your full attention to them physically. Put your device(s) away. Look at the person. Listen carefully. Open your heart. Be there without pushing an agenda. Simply Listening.
     • During this month find an occasion where you can bring food (e.g. a nice snack) to share with people who would not expect you to bring food. Notice what effect your gift has on these people. Also notice how it affects you to have done this.
     • During this month find an occasion where you can give something anonymously to a person you have some direct contact with. Be mindful of what you are feeling as you are considering this act, while you are doing it, after it is done.
     • During this month look for an opportunity where you want to do something generous that feels like a challenge or a stretch for you to do. Act on your wish and explore what you feel and think before, during, and after doing it.

HAVE FUN!

7. Agreed upon Guidelines for Yearlong Program. Practicing the ways below, together, every month can support us in our everyday lives thru noticing our immediate reactions. Remembering that we have an opportunity to pause, check in, & choose how we respond.
   • Show up. Pay Attention. Speak your truth without blame or judgment. Let go of outcome and be open to outcome.
   • All perspectives are welcome here. Notice your reaction to what is shared and have that be your practice in that moment.
   • Everything we do here is voluntary. It is a courageous & generous act to share. It is a compassionate & generous act to deeply listen.
   • Speak about what’s alive for you in this moment from your heart, your own experience, refrain from intellectual or philosophical sharing or long story telling, notice if may be judging or blaming another’s perspective. Is it possible to talk from a place of kindness and love?
   • Notice what arises as you speak. Are we in touch with what is true and alive or we wanting to impress, to feel important, to be liked?
   • Listen deeply; notice what arises within you as you listen. Where do we go when someone says something we agree with? When we hear something that triggers us?
   • Please be lean of expression, meaning be mindful to stay on point vs. going tangential. We are a large group, and it would be good to hear from as many voices as possible. WAIT “Why Am I Talking?” Waist?
   • If you’ve already spoken, think twice before choosing to speak again as it would be good to hear from those who have not yet
   • Please refrain from offering advice unless it is specifically solicited or unless you ask the person’s permission.
   • Please honor confidentiality. If you need to share with others out-side of this circle, please share from your own direct experience not that of other members in the sangha.-community
   • The next three were added from the workshop:
     • Trust your heart that we all have the capacity to work these guidelines and paramis.
     • Non-Harming yourself or others with the words you are expressing
     • Pause before you speak

Opening to Joy Home Practices: WEEK 2 (1/16/25)

Joy is different for each of us– could be a quiet sense of contentment, bubbly enthusiasm, energetic radiance, a feeling of quiet connection. Joy arises as a belly laugh, serenely contented smile that accepts life just as it is. We may know joy when we are touched by beauty or nature. We may feel an energetic lightness when we are silly or playful. Being generous or compassionate uplifts our hearts, gratitude causes joy, delight, wonder. Joy in delighting in other people’s happiness. Joy in goodness or in truth . (just a few for you.)

1. Set a daily intention for joy, (well-being, happiness, contentment, delight, ease, aliveness) Trusting that you can make a heartfelt intention, to do your part to make that happen. Set the compass of your heart. Repeat your intention before you sit and when you remember throughout your day.
2. Sit every day: Try sitting for a minimum of 10-30 minutes per day. (more if you are able) Please practice your meditation in silence (if you use an app to sit try only using it a few times in the week)
3. Gratitude Practices: Gratitude is the capacity to take delight, to let ourselves feel joy, wonder. Our life is the gift of many lives!
   1. Text or e-mail our buddies 3 things you are grateful for each day. Can be anything.
   2. Cultivate a sense of appreciation: Thank someone daily.
4. Begin to notice what affect joy has on you? Do your best to register joy in your body, heart & mind whenever you experience it. Breathe into it, Get to know joy.
5. Pause Practice: Simply stop and pause– Feel your feet on the floor. Relax the body. Notice how the body feels. Widen your attention over the entire body-inhabit the body. Pay attention and float the question, “What is happening right now?” Listen deeply to the answer. Let it go. Rest & feel your feet. Recollect your intention. Practice pausing.
6. Joy Daily Life: What helps you feel ease, contentment or joy? What are the activities that most easily bring you joy? Is it some kind of physical activity? Are you more likely to feel joy when you are with others or when you are alone? Do you experience joy that is not dependent on any particular activity? If so, what brings about that joy?

Please reflect on these questions during the week. Also add any easy ways that increase the amount of joy or delight in your daily life to your list –

And again bring the list to our next class.

Please Have FUN!  Sending Heart wheels to you!

Opening to Joy Home Practices: WEEK 1 (1/9/25)

1. Intention: form the intention to open to joy for the next 8 weeks. Then do your part to open to where joy and happiness are for you.
2. Sitting Practice: for a minimum of 10-30 minutes per day (more if you are able). Please practice your meditation in silence. (If you use apps -use them only a few times this week)
3. Gratitude Practices: Gratitude is the capacity to take delight, to let ourselves feel joy, wonder. Our life is the gift of many lives!
   • Text or e-mail your buddies 3 things you are grateful for each day. Can be anything.
   • Cultivate a sense of appreciation each day.
   • Thank someone every day
4. Joy Daily Life Practices: Joy is our hearts capacity to celebrate!
   • Create a list of easy ways that you can increase the amount of joy and/or delight in your daily life. For example: What are some of the obvious activities, actions, events or aspects of nature-of beauty in your daily life that you often overlook that would bring some degree of joy if you really noticed? (You can add to this list during the week) Please bring the list to our next class.
   • Practice a couple of easy ways on your list. Notice what affect does joy have on you-your body, heart, mind?
   • Notice if in the midst of a life with 100,000 thousand joys and 100,000 sorrows you can simply attend to how you are present. Allow the body to be still, the mind to settle, attend to this moment however it is. In the midst of the delightful or the difficult, we make our home in our capacity to embrace, include and care of the well-being of our heart.

HAVE FUN!

Gentle Clarity & Precision in Meditation: Week 2 (1/14/2025)

1. FORMAL PRACTICE
   • Continue with the instructions (see last week’s homework for review)
   • You can explore any of the following as ways to cultivate precision, clarity, & discernment.
     • Explicitly verbalizing the way that you are planning to practice just before you begin formal practice
     • After your formal practice, taking a few light, high-level notes on exactly what took place during your formal practice period. Less the ‘story’ of what happened, and more a meditation ‘report’.
     • Play with the online practice form as a way to strengthen clarity about how you’re practicing. (LINK)
   • Instruction Updates
     • Primary object:
       • You can explore highlighting the seeing of change in a few ways including:
         • Noticing how each in-breath is different from the last out-breath and vice versa.
         • Noticing how each in-breath is different from the last in-breath, and/or how each out-breath is different from the last out-breath
         • Feeling/Knowing/Recognizing the arc of change across a single in-breath, a single out-breath. Much like watching a time-lapse of flowers blossoming and wilting, or croissants rising, browning, catching fire, and returning to become the dust from whence they came.
     • Secondary object: No updates
2. INFORMAL PRACTICE
   • Continue to look for similarities between your relationship/reaction/response to secondary objects during the formal practice, and notable moments of experience throughout your day.

Gentle Clarity & Precision in Meditation: Week 1 (1/7/2025)

1. FORMAL PRACTICE

1. • Primary object: changing sensations of the breath
   • Secondary object: feeling tone (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral) of anything else that becomes predominantly noticeable in your experience (thoughts, emotions, sensations, sounds, etc.)
   • First, notice where you feel the breath most clearly and obviously. This is where you’ll return your attention throughout the formal practice. Next begin to notice how the sensations of each breath are changing. Try noticing all the ways an inbreath feels distinct from the last outbreath. Try noticing how each half breath (in or out) has its own changing arc of sensations, it has a beginning, middle, and end which each feel different. Rather than focusing on “the breath”, bring your attention and interest to how you feel the sensations changing. This is subtle, but can be valuable.
   • You’ll notice that attention gets pulled to other areas of experience quite a bit. When this happens, we include it in our meditation by recognizing the way that we experience the feeling tone in the mind at that moment “pleasant, unpleasant, or neither pleasant nor unpleasant”. There’s nothing else to do, we don’t have to analyze or rationalize about where attention goes or why. Simply notice the feeling tone. Then gently begin again freshly, turning your attention to where in the body you feel the breath the most clearly.

2. INFORMAL PRACTICE
   • Notice if you begin to see the mind taking an interest in recognizing feeling tone in the midst of your day—often, or occasionally. And note: Seeing feeling tone is the very root of potential moments of non-clinging. In other words, often you may find that when a pleasant experience arises there is liking that co-arises in the mind. A wanting to make it “good”, or “right”, or best”.

3. COMPASSION
   • Go seek out instructions on how to practice self-compassion, or mindful self-compassion. Anytime suffering or struggle becomes predominant, practice compassion.

Elders’ Home Practice for January 14, 2025

A new year, a time for reflection on the past year, of setting aspirations for the new year.  How am I in the world?  Am I kind?  Compassionate?  Generous? To whom?  Where do I separate? 

The story of the Golden Buddha in Thailand, had been covered in plaster and stucco to protect it, but when being moved and dropped, the plaster cracked and the gold was revealed.

We are all Golden Buddhas, often covered in protective plaster.  As we deepen our practice, expand our awareness, we can face our protective coverings, we become aware of our own golden Buddha-nature.

Perhaps we require the plaster and mud to crack open our protective barriers, to break open our heart, before our gold shines through.

Thich Naht Hanh – No Mud, No Lotus.  The lotus flower requires the mud for its flower to bloom on the surface of the water.

Chögyam Trungpa: “To be a spiritual warrior, one must have a broken heart; without a broken heart and the sense of tenderness and vulnerability, your warriorship is untrustworthy.” “The spiritual warrior is one who bravely faces their own shadows and embraces the light within.”

Leonard Cohen:

Ring the bells that still can ring / Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in.

The Japanese art form Kintsugi,  the art of repairing broken pottery with gold. The broken pieces of pottery are put back together, and then the joins are painted and decorated with gold or silver powder.  This highlights the cracks, the imperfections, creating beauty and wholeness out of what had been broken.  We put ourselves back together, not hiding our cracks, but seeing their beauty, their gold.

Beannacht: A Blessing for the New Year, by John O’Donohue
For Josie, my mother

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets into you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green
and azure blue,
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

Elder’s Home Practice for Dec 10, 2024

December holidays, can be joyful with family, food, giving and receiving. Can also cause stress, clinging and longing.

Antidotes can be generosity, gratitude, the practice of tonglen

 

Generosity, dana in Pali, the first Parami, the first of the 10 Perfections of the Heart

Sylvia Boorstein:   The Buddha taught that generosity was the first of the paramis because most people have something they can relin­quish. In the largest sense, generosity is not giving away material things. It is non-clinging. … For myself [she continues], giving up attachment to ideas, attachment to views, has been a much more difficult challenge than giv­ing away material things. When I have been able to give up my attachment to views, it has seemed like an act of gener­osity both to myself and to others.

Generosity as not clinging, the relinquishing of our views and attitudes, not just the giving of material things

Gil Fronsdale, Insight teacher: Perhaps dana is more about how we are than what we do.  Through generosity, we cultivate a generous spirit.

Generous spirit, generous acts, letting go without judgment. No strings.

 

The practice of generosity, giving and receiving fully, can lead to the practice of gratitude.

Having an attitude of gratitude.

Zen meal gatha, a verse in the Zen tradition said before eating, which begins: “Seventy-two labors brought us this food / We should know how it comes to us.”

Koshin Paley Ellison, Zen teacher: These words [the meal gatha] are a gateway toward gratitude and a reminder that we are all connected.

To see all the paramis as gateways to being more present, more whole, right here and right now.

Tara Brach: Gratitude arises when we are in sacred relationship with life—present, open and receptive

Generosity and gratitude, all the paramis, as aspirations.

 

Tonglen – breathing in another’s suffering, breathing out ease.  

Pema Chodron: It’s a simple and natural exchange: you see suffering, you take it in with the inbreath, you send out relief with the outbreath.

Sharon Salzberg: We are all bodhisattvas, not in the sense of being saviors running around taking care of everybody’s problems, but through the truth of interconnectedness. There is no separation. We all belong to each other.

Elder’s Home Practice for Nov 12, 2024

We are buddhas, sitting in sangha, attending to dharma.

Rebecca Solnit, “Hope in Darkness.”     

You have a role no matter what, and right now good friends and good principles are worth gathering in. Remember what you love. Remember what loves you. Remember what love is.

You can be heartbroken or furious or both at once; you can scream in your car or on a cliff; you can also get up tomorrow and water the flowerpots and call someone who’s upset.

Gather up your resources, the metaphysical ones that are heart and soul and care, as well as the practical ones.

Olivia Hoblitzelle, “Aging with Wisdom.” The elder years are our most heroic years.

Matty Weingast, “The First Free Women: Poems of the Early Buddhist Nuns.”

VIRA ~ HERO

Truly strong
among those
who think themselves
strong.

Truly unafraid
among those
who hide their
fear.

A hero
among those
who talk of heroes.

Don’t be fooled by outward signs—
lifting heavy things
or picking fights with weaker opponents
and running headfirst into battle.

A real hero
walks the Path
to its end.
 
Then shows others the way.

Majjhima Nikaya 141:  Here a person rouses the will, makes an effort, stirs up energy, exerts the mind, and strives…

So what can help us remember? Remember who we are, the person we want to be?

• Take a timeout, to meditate, spend time in nature, journal or write, hug a pet, call a friend.
• Remember a vow, mantra, or totem.
• Remember the Thich Naht Hanh smile, the small upward curve of our mouths, our inner smile
• Remember the Three Treasures, take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. Our own capacity for awakening; the teachings everywhere in all things; the whole of all beings, the great circle of being.

Thich Naht Hanh, “Being Peace.”

“When we say, ‘I take refuge in the Buddha,’ we should also understand that ‘The Buddha takes refuge in us.’ … The Buddha needs us for awakening, understanding, and love to be real things and not just concepts.… We are all buddhas, because only through us can understanding and love become tangible and effective.”

From “The Essential Rumi.”  (trans. John Moyne and Coleman Barks)

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened.  Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading.  Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

HOME PRACTICE for October 22, 2024  Elders Sangha

Instructions for Opening Meditation: Affectionate breathing taken from Christopher Germer/Kristin Neff – Mindful Self Compassion Training – 20 – 30 minutes

• Please find a posture in which your body is comfortable and will feel supported for the duration of the meditation.  Then let your eyes gently close, partially  or fully. Take a few slow, easy breaths, releasing any unnecessary tension in you body.
• If you like, placing a hand over your heart or another soothing place as a reminder that you’re bringing not only awareness, but affectionate awareness, to your breathing and to yourself.  You can leave your hand there or let it rest at any time.
• Now beginning to notice your breathing in your body , feeling your body breathe in and feeling your body breathe out. Breathing in and breathing out
• Perhaps noticing how your body is nourished on the in-breath and relaxes on the out-breath
• Just letting your body breath you. Breathing in and breathing out………..There is nothing you need to do
• Noticing the rhythm of your breath, flowing in and flowing out (Pause) Taking time to feel the rhythm of your breathing
• Perhaps incline your attention toward your breathing as you might toward a beloved child or a dear friend
• Feeling your whole body subtly moving with the breath, like the movement of the sea
• Your mind will naturally wander like a curious child or even a puppy.  When the happens, just gently returning to the rhythm of your breath, feeling it move through your body
• If you notice there’s a sense of watching your breath see if you can let that go and just be with you breath, feeling it
• Allowing your whole body  to be gently rocked and caressed  – internally caressed – by your breathing
• Just breathing. Being breathing. (Long pause)
• And now, gently releasing your attending to your breathing , sitting quietly in your own experience, allowing yourself feel whatever your are feeling and to be just as you are
• When you are ready, slowly and gently opening your eyes

HOME PRACTICE for September 10, 2024  Elders Sangha

Books:

1. The Magnanimous Heart: Compassion and Love, Loss and Grief, Joy and Liberation by Narayan Helen Liebenson
2. Awakening Through Love: Unveiling Your Deepest Goodness by John Makransky

Other suggested reading:

1. The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion: Freeing Yourself from Destructive Thoughts and Emotions by Christopher K. Germer
2. Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power, and Thrive by Dr. Kristin Neff
3. Compassion by Christina Feldman

Suggested programs:

1. Cambridgeinsight.org: The Magnanimous Heart: Loss and Grief, Love and Compassion, Joy and Liberation (hybrid: online) with Narayan Helen Liebenson Saturday, September 28 10:00 am – 5:00 pm
2.  sustainablecompassion.org Meditations to access unconditional qualities of love, compassion, and wisdom. Sustainable Compassion Training supports people in caring roles and professions, modern Buddhists, and people of other spiritual traditions who want to access a power of unconditional love, compassion and wisdom for living, service and action.

 

HOME PRACTICE for May 28, 2024  Elders Sangha

We picked up on the theme of gentleness and kindness in our practice, which was sounded during the last session in the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, who always reminded us that happiness was close at hand by touching the present moment with our mindfulness.

We introduced this poem, or Vajra Song, which Larry Rosenberg would often hand out near the end of his 9-day IMS retreats as a reminder to release our grasping and relax our striving.

“Free and Easy” – A Spontaneous Vajra Song
by Venerable Lama Gendun Rinpoche

Happiness cannot be found through
great effort and willpower,
but is already present,
in open relaxation and letting go.

Don’t strain yourself,
there is nothing to do or undo.
Whatever momentarily arises
in the body-mind
Has no real importance at all,
has little reality whatsoever.
Why identify with,
And become attached to it,
Passing Judgment upon it and ourselves?

Far better to simply
let the entire game happen on its own,
springing up and falling back like waves
without changing or manipulating anything
and notice how everything
vanishes and reappears, magically,
Again and again, time without end.

Only our searching for happiness
prevents us from seeing it.
It’s like a vivid rainbow which you pursue
without ever catching,
or a dog chasing it’s own tail.

Although peace and happiness
do not exist as an actual thing or place,
it is always available
and accompanies you every instant.

Don’t believe in the reality
of good and bad experiences;
they are today’s ephemeral weather,
like rainbows in the sky.

Wanting to grasp the ungraspable,
you exhaust yourself in vain.
As soon as you open and relax
this tight fist of grasping,
infinite space is there –
open, inviting and comfortable.

Make use of this spaciousness, this
freedom and natural ease.
Don’t search any further
looking for the great awakened elephant,
who is already resting quietly at home
in front of your own hearth.

Nothing to do or undo,
nothing to force,
nothing to want,
And nothing missing.

Emaho! Marvelous!
Everything happens by itself.

HOME PRACTICE for May 15, 2024

Why do I meditate?  What calls me to sit? Does Meditation help me to manage suffering?

Thich Naht Hanh in Tricycle  (June 28, 2017) talks about the energy of mindfulness helping us to no longer be afraid of being overwhelmed by the energy of suffering.

Mindfulness can be defined as learning to bring our attention to the present moment and seeing what arises, without judgment or bias.  Paying attention to exactly what is, and being able to be with what arises from that seeing.

Meditating is a training ground for mindfulness. We learn it on the cushion, and slowly move it into a way of life, off the cushion.

Pema Chodron, in The Wisdom of No Escape, talks about three qualities we can cultivate, in our mindfulness meditation, and in our living a mindful life. They are precision, gentleness, and the ability to let go.

Precision – to see clearly ourselves and our world, with honesty.

Gentleness – to incline ourselves, our attitude, to gentleness, relaxation.  No critic.

Letting go – to notice our mind is telling a story, is part of the narrative, and let it go.

We soften ourselves, our attention, our breath, with precision and gentleness.  We learn to befriend ourselves. By befriending ourselves, we can befriend the world.

Sebene Salassie: “Our practice is our whole life. It’s not about the fifteen or thirty minutes on the cushion; it’s about seeing how much presence, awareness, kindness, joy, and freedom we’re bringing to each moment.”

Things to ponder:

Why do you meditate?  Do you feel that you can take your mindfulness off the cushion and into your daily life?

Do the terms “precision, gentleness, and letting go” resonate with anything you’re experiencing or have experienced – in your meditation practice or in your life? Or conversely, are any of the terms off-putting or simply don’t work for you?

 

Poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, called “With Astonishing Tenderness.”

When, in the middle of the night,
you wake with the certainty you’ve
done it all wrong, when you wake
and see clearly all the places you’ve failed,
in that moment, when dreams will not return,
this is the chance for your softest voice—
the one you reserve for those you love most—
to say to you quietly, oh sweetheart,
this is not yet the end of the story.
Sleep will not come, but somehow,
in that wide awake moment there is peace—
the kind of peace that does not need
everything to be right before it arrives.
The peace that comes from not fighting
what is real. The peace that rises
in the dark on its sure dark wings
to meet you exactly as you are.

Practice and Compassion

There are times when things seem to fall apart, times we need to remember our practice, and compassion.  It’s often useful to remember the Buddha’s First Noble Truth – There is suffering.  And that all is impermanent, one of the Buddha’s Three marks of existence.  And the Five Recollections: We age, we can get ill, we will die, we will know loss, my actions are my only true belongings.

We seem to suffer most when we are attached to the way things are, when we are full of aversion to change, to impermanence.

From Tricycle, Cultivating Courage (intro, Feb 8, 2024):

We must become brave in the face of all we fear. The Buddha as an embodiment of Compassionate Courage. We must learn to not turn away.  To stay present. To meet every challenge and difficulty with compassion…. That courage isn’t about battling our demons so much as it is about dropping our armor – opening our hearts to embrace all of our experience.

Pema Chodron’s book – When Things Fall Apart.  She talks how the practice of metta, and of compassion, can create a steadiness and peace, that is independent of condition.  And as we steady and ground ourselves, we offer it to others.

Which requires Attention, Intention, and Effort, to support this steadiness.

From Pema: We need room for it all, the entire gamut of our feelings, of life.    We are vulnerable, we are tender, and we can touch in on that vulnerability, that tenderness. We can hold ourselves with compassion.

What is compassion?  From Sharon Salzberg:  “Compassion is known in Buddhist teaching as the quivering of the heart in response to pain or suffering.”  Which requires bearing witness, to our pain and the pain of others. Even when it feels unbearable.  We can offer kindness rather than withdraw.

 

Things to ponder:

What does compassion mean to you?  Self-compassion?  Compassion for others.

When compassion feels too hard, how might you use practice and sangha to help?

 

Allow – Danna Faulds

There is no controlling life.
Try corralling a lightning bolt, containing a tornado.
Dam a stream and it will create a new channel.
Resist, and the tide will sweep you off your feet.
Allow, and grace will carry you to higher ground.
The only safety lies in letting it all in —
the wild and weak —
fear, fantasies, failures, and success.

When loss rips off the doors of the heart
or sadness veils your vision with despair,
practice becomes simply bearing the truth.
In the choice to let go of your known way of being,
the whole world is revealed to your new eyes.

2/13/24

We talked about viewing things in new ways. For example Sayadaw U Tejaniya says the mind “never wanders, where would it go?”.
Even though we have all used that language of the ‘wandering mind’, since it feels experientially true, U Tejaniya says that the mind is merely becoming absorbing into our thinking instead of absorbing into our breath, body sensations, or whatever object we originally chose. Does using that language give us a different perspective?

Another example is the wonderful way that Thich Nhat Hanh has used language to describe the steps of meditation practice. This video, called “Stop Running,” which was mentioned in our session, is a wonderful example of using the word “stopping’ to describe the practices of calming the mind, traditionally called Samatha practice.

Also mentioned was this technique, called the Six R’s, that describes the steps of coming back from the “wandering mind” or the “mind absorbed in thinking” when this inevitably happens:

Six R’s – Ven. Vimalaramsi

Recognize – What we are attending to: A plan, scheduling, a memory, a fantasy, a brilliant idea?
Release – the energy around thinking about that now. It can be done later.
Relax – Any tension in the body that resulted from the thinking
Re-smile – Came back to resting in the present moment
Reconnect – your attention to the breath or your meditation object
Resume – wash, rinse, repeat!

Refuge and Sangha

Traditional Buddhist Precepts ceremony: Taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha.

Sangha as a refuge, a way to be connected, be supported, a way to offer support to others.

Thich Nhat Hanh: “Members of your sangha may be your child, your partner, and a beautiful path in the woods. The blue sky and beautiful trees are also members of your sangha.” (Tricycle, The Next Buddha may be a Sangha, Jan 22, 2023)

Sangha as an essential part of our practice; it can hold us, make a container for us.

Thich Nhat Hanh: “The next Buddha may take the form of a community, a community practicing mindful living. And the practice can be carried out as a group, as a city, as a nation.”   (Tricycle, Jan 22, 2023)

Zen Peacemaker’s Order, Three Tenets:  Not Knowing, Bearing Witness, Loving Action.

In Sangha, we bear witness to others; they bear witness to us.

As elders, we can be held, and we can hold others.  Sharing the wisdom of aging.

Larry Rosenberg: Our Practice is the Practice of Intimacy.  Intimacy with ourselves, with others, with the present moment. (CIMC Newsletter Jan 31, 2023; Mar 3, 2023.)

In Sangha, we can be reminded of our own Buddha nature.

Thich Nhat Hanh poem, from (from “Call me by My True Names – The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh”, Parallax Press, 2005.)

You are me and I am you.

Isn’t obvious that we inter-are?

You cultivate the flower in yourself

so that I will be beautiful.

I transform the garbage in myself

so that you don’t have to suffer.

I support you – you support me.

I am here to bring you peace,

you are here to bring me joy.    

November 28, 2023

We discussed using the Four Noble Truths as a daily refuge and actual framework for exploring stress, (Dukkha), and the cessation of Dukkha, in other words, as a practice instead of a view.

Readings from a wonderful little book from Ajahn Sumedho were discussed.

Here is the link to download a free copy of his revised book on the Four Noble Truths.  This site is a rich treasure of Dharma writings and talks from Ajahn Sumedho and the other U.K. forest sangha.

November 14, 2023

Intentions, Effort, and Hooks.

We have intentions, aspirations, things we wish to do, ways we wish to be. This is often hard, especially in times of inner and outer distress, of high emotion.  We need effort, often, to stay true to these intentions, to help us to make them manifest.  And so we work with Wise Intention and Wise Effort, path factors on the Eightfold Path.

How do I use my practice to support my intention?  How can my practice help me to notice what I’m doing, where I’m distracting myself from my intention? We come back to the breath, to our body. We come back to attention, noticing what is attracting us, what we’re pushing away. And being with that, accepting even our resistance.

From the early suttas:

Wise Intention: Whatever you intend, whatever you plan, and whatever you have a tendency toward, that will become the basis on which your mind is established. (SN 12.40)

Wise Effort: And when we notice our tendency is towards the not-so-skillful, or the non-beneficial, we need to Rouse the will, make an effort,  stir up energy, exert our mind, and strive. (MN 141)

From Pema Chodron –

Don’t Bite the Hook (audiobook).

“How we get hooked, and how we can unhooked.”  (Lion’s Roar, Jan 13, 2023).

Shenpa, the urge, the hook, that triggers us into tightening, into contraction, into habit. How can we not get hooked?  We use effort to remember our practice of being with what is. With effort, we practice not contracting; by accepting that realities of impermanence and change.

By noticing, and accepting, we create space, and allow for possibility of not biting that hook.  The global hook; personal hook.  Both so important. We practice being with what is, seeing how we might be resisting, and loosening into the reality of what is.

We use our practice to not get hooked, to remember our intentions, and to use our effort to come back to the breath, to our body, to our wholeness. And just be, right here, right now.

—

The CIMC Sangha Life Committee (SLC) is a group that represents different sanghas of the CIMC community. See more about them on the CIMC website:

https://cambridgeinsight.org/our-community/sangha-life-committee/

Kathy Holmes represents the Elders Sangha on the SLC.  She invites any of the Elders Sangha who have questions or concerns, or are simply curious, to contact her via email. Please include “Elders” in the subject line.  kholmes45@gmail.com

Adrift (Mark Nepo)

Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.

This is how the heart makes a duet of

wonder and grief. The light spraying

through the lace of the fern is as delicate

as the fibers of memory forming their web

around the knot in my throat. The breeze

makes the birds move from branch to branch

as this ache makes me look for those I’ve lost

in the next room, in the next song, in the laugh

of the next stranger. In the very center, under

it all, what we have that no one can take

away and all that we’ve lost face each other.

It is there that I’m adrift, feeling punctured

by a holiness that exists inside everything.

I am so sad and everything is beautiful.

She Let Go (Rev Safire Rose)

She let go.

She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of the fear.

She let go of the judgments.

She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.

She let go of the committee of indecision within her.

She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.

Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn’t ask anyone for advice.

She didn’t read a book on how to let go.

She didn’t search the scriptures.

She just let go.

She let go of all of the memories that held her back.

She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.

She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn’t promise to let go.

She didn’t journal about it.

She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer.

She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.

She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.

She just let go.

She didn’t analyze whether she should let go.

She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.

She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.

She didn’t call the prayer line.

She didn’t utter one word.

She just let go.

No one was around when it happened.

There was no applause or congratulations.

No one thanked her or praised her.

No one noticed a thing.

Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.

There was no effort.

There was no struggle.

It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.

It was what it was, and it is just that.

In the space of letting go, she let it all be.

A small smile came over her face.

A light breeze blew through her.

And the sun and the moon shone forevermore…

She Let Go (poem by Rev. Safire Rose, c. 2003)

She let go.
She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.
She let go of the fear.
She let go of the judgments.
She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.
She let go of the committee of indecision within her.
She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.
Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.
She didn’t ask anyone for advice.
She didn’t read a book on how to let go.
She didn’t search the scriptures.
She just let go.
She let go of all of the memories that held her back.
She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.
She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.
She didn’t promise to let go.
She didn’t journal about it.
She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer.
She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.
She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.
She just let go.
She didn’t analyze whether she should let go.
She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.
She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.
She didn’t call the prayer line.
She didn’t utter one word.
She just let go.
No one was around when it happened.
There was no applause or congratulations.
No one thanked her or praised her.
No one noticed a thing.
Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.
There was no effort.
There was no struggle.
It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.
It was what it was, and it is just that.
In the space of letting go, she let it all be.
A small smile came over her face.
A light breeze blew through her.
And the sun and the moon shone forevermore…

Homework

Besides continuing or renewing your daily meditation practice, (Fall is a great time to recommit whole heartedly!) bring awareness to experiences of change:

Changes in outer circumstances

Changes in the body, changing emotions, recurring thought patterns, etc.

Watching the dance between resistance and letting go

Quotations from the talk on “Dealing with Change:”

N.Y.T. Op Ed “Stop Resisting Change,” Brad Stulberg

Master of Change: How to Excel When Everything is Changing – Including You, Brad Stulberg

“You have to become a chaos to give birth to a dancing star.” – Nietzsche

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it and join the dance.”- Alan Watts

“The sanctity of now” – Rupert Spira, You Are the Happiness You Seek

“When you’re completely in the now, you’re always standing in the middle of a sacred circle.” – Pema Chodron

Experiment with your personal ways of homecoming, centering.

It may be helpful to list them, knowing clearly what really helps.

Your daily practice, both meditation and throughout the day, moments of remembering, coming home to yourself, shifting from the world of distraction – (both external and within)

2) Hokusai (Most famous 19^th century Japanese artist) Also most famous exponent of positive aging:
“Everything I have done before the age of 70 is not worth bothering with. At 75, I will have learned something of the pattern of nature, of animals, of plants, of trees, birds, fish and insects. When I am 80 you will see real progress. At 90 I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itself. At 100, I shall be a marvelous artist. At 110, everything I create […] will jump to life as never before. […] I used to call myself Hokusai, but today I sign myself ‘The Old Man Mad About Drawing.”

7 Homecomings:
1) Breath
2) The body, beginning of meditation, including subtle body or energy body
3) The body in movement: Gentle stretching, etc.
Walking: slow, mindful walking or walking for exercise
Personal practice: “With great respect & love I bow to this body:
Home of the self (essence self), Vehicle for awakening
Abode of pure awareness
4) Sacred place
5) Natural world Finding refuge in nature
6) Daily practice: meditation ideally 20-30 minutes and awareness practice throughout the day
7) 3 words from Shiva Sutras: “Remembrance is Bhairava” (Bhairava means the Lord, Mystery, That which is beyond words, God)

**Any moment of remembrance is sacred (the inner shift to remembering your refuges, homecoming)**

Two more this morning: 1) Stopping 2) Awareness to the heart center

Inspiring interview with Brother David Steindl-Rast (97 years old)

Poem: https://poets.org/poem/morning-i-pray-my-enemies

Lessons from the Dharma for coping with a significant loss

1) The Five Recollections:

I am of the nature to age.
Aging is unavoidable.

I am the nature to get ill.
Illness is unavoidable.

I am the of the nature to die.
Death is unavoidable.

All that is dear to me and everyone I love
are of the nature to change.
There is no way to escape being separated from them.

My actions are my only true belongings.
I cannot avoid the consequences of my actions.
My actions are the ground on which I stand.

2) Read The Magnanimous Heart by Narayan Helen Liebenson

3) Read Awakening Through Love: Unveiling Your Deepest Goodness by Lama John Makransky

HOME PRACTICE for June 13, 2023 Elders

Our elder years are so often times of aging and separation and loss, often times of experiencing fear, and finding the courage to face that fear. How might we meet those fears, what can we practice to help us remember courage?

We can practice the Buddha’s Five Recollections, or Five Remembrances.
1. I am of the nature to grow old; there is no way to escape growing old.
2. I am of the nature to have ill health; there is no way to escape having ill health.
3. I am of the nature to die; there is no way to escape death.
4. All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.
5. My deeds are my closest companions. I am the beneficiary of my deeds. My deeds are the ground on which I stand.

In those recollections, we are reminded to let go of self, and to remember that what is happening to us is part of life, not personal nor punitive. We experience all that life offers, pleasure and pain; we are not exempt from the full gamut of life’s experiences.

We can practice Right View, the first of the path factors of the Eightfold Path. Right View can be a way of alleviating suffering. By seeing that what is happening is simply what is, we can alleviate the extra suffering we often add with our second arrows, by wanting things to be other than they are.

Thich Nhat Hanh: Right View is not an ideology, a system, or even a path. It is the insight we have into the reality of life, a living insight…

Right View is a compass, an aspiration, a reminder. It is an insight and an acceptance of the reality of things, of how life is.

We can accept being in the in-between place, and not knowing.

Pema Chodron: The in-between place: …We aren’t told all that much about this state of being in-between… The challenge is to let it soften us rather than make us more rigid and afraid. Becoming intimate with the queasy feeling of being in the middle of nowhere only makes our hearts more tender. When we are brave enough to stay in the middle, compassion rises.

Compassion for ourselves, for those we might be caring for, for all beings also experiencing the whole gamut of life.

Koan: Not-knowing is most intimate
It takes courage to be in this in-between place, this place of not knowing. We can remember to soften into intimacy, with ourselves, with the moment, with this in-between place.

Poem: Allow, by Danna Faulds: There is no controlling life.… and practice becomes simply bearing the truth… (You can access the entire poem via Google.)

From Larry Rosenberg:

May we continue to look into ourselves.
May we see things exactly as they are.
And may such clear, direct seeing free us.

May 9 Homework – Kate Beers

The Wisdom of the Body

Your body is always present:

1. Think of a time when your mind and thoughts told you one thing but your body reactions told you something else. For example, denying you are angry to yourself and others but your body reactions reveal that you angry.

2. Take sometime to discover and experience your own body sensations. For example, when angry, perhaps your jaw tightens, your breathing becomes forced, your eyes narrow, etc.

3. List a few words that reflect your deepest values; and, using them as a mantra, discover your body sensations. For example, Integrity; kindness, gratitude, grace.
Let yourself appreciate how your mind/body is fully connected.

References:
Awake Where You Are: The Art of Embodied Awareness by Martin Aylward
The Wakeful Body: Somatic Mindfulness as a Path to Freedom by Willa Blythe Baker

Website:
Dialogue between John Makransky, Lama in Tibetan Buddhism and Richard Schwartz, Family systems therapist and founder of Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Becoming Our Compassionate Self: Integrating Parts of Ourselves into the Process of Spiritual Awakening
A Conversation Between Internal Family Systems and Tibetan Buddhism

April 11 Homework – Kate Beers

Bring kindness to your body

Suggestions:
• Metta / Body Scan
• Gentle Yoga
• Massage

Reference: Sharon Salzberg – Aging Wisely

Discover your own embodied wisdom

Meditate on a word or words that reflect a deep value and note your own body sensations. Allow yourself to experiment. Stay with words that fully resonate in your body. Let go of words that may feel conflicted. What do you discover?

Examples:
Gratitude, kindness, compassion, grace, integrity, authenticity, love, etc

References:
Martin Aylward – Awake Where You Are: The Art of Embodied Wisdom
John Makransky – Awakening Through Love: Unveiling Your Deepest Goodness

Our body is the first of the four foundations of Mindfulness – from the Satipatthana Sutta, the Buddha’s Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness.  Often it’s our body where we first notice signs of aging, of becoming an elder.

The practice of acceptance, of ourself, of our body, of kindness towards ourselves, even our losses, is crucial. To accept, to witness ourselves, without judgement, and with care; to love them, to lean towards them, to embrace them.

Thich Nhat Hanh in his book No Mud, No Lotus, talks about the Sallatha Sutta, the Arrow sutta. The first arrow is that which happens, causes pain; the second arrow is fired by our own selves, is our reaction, our storyline, our anxiety.  We add to our suffering with these second arrows.

Sharon Salzberg as she was turning 70 wrote a Tricycle article, Aging Wisely, with much the same themes – what happens to the body as we age as the first arrow, and “our tendency to rehearse some catastrophe, and thereby live it several times.” This rehearsing as the second arrow.  One way to work with these, a doing a body scan along with the loving-kindness meditation; may each part of the body be happy.

Ruth King, in a Tricycle podcast, writes about kindness. “Kindness is a decision, a decision to incline the heart toward goodwill for all beings.”

Narayan tells of a Zen teaching:

A student asks his Zen master: How to be happy. The teacher replies:  Complete unrestricted cooperation with the unavoidable.

Nancy Mujo Baker – “Living Without Why,” from Meister Eckhart. Without “why me, why now, why this?”  Depersonalize the suffering that is innate in nature – the First Noble Truth: There is suffering.  Personalizing our suffering is another form of second arrow.

How do we cooperate with those hard parts?  What can we count on, rest in, to see us through, to sustain us.  We come back to the first foundation, to our body, to our breath, to our center.

TNH poem – This Body is Not Me:  (first lines)

This body is not me; I am not limited by this body,
I am life without boundaries.

Rumi poem –

I am not this hair
I am not this skin.
I am the soul
That lives within.

February 14, 2023 Homework

Focus on bringing metta or loving -kindness into both your meditation and at other times, perhaps using one of the traditional phrases. Examples: (create your own phrases)
May I and all beings live with loving-kindness
May I and all beings have ease of heart
May I and all being live with peaceful hearts

Refresh your practice. Always an invitation to re-commit to a daily practice of sitting meditation even if it’s for a short time. Increase your sitting to 20-30 minutes or more.

Remember how helpful it is to start with the body: a few minutes of gentle stretching or yoga shifts your energy and eases you into meditation more easily.

Simple exercise: breathing in metta, breathing out and sending metta to others

Reflections from the talk on Metta – loving kindness

Thich Nhat Hanh:
“Love is made of four elements: loving-kindness (metta), compassion (karuna), joy (mudita) and equanimity (upeksha). If your love contains these elements, it will be healing and transforming, and it will have the element of holiness in it. True love has the power to transform any situation and bring deep meaning to our lives.”
–From his little book How to Love

Love is a verb – it’s the energy of the heart

Unconditional love: Tulku Thondup’s book titled: The Heart of Unconditional Love: a Powerful New Approach to Loving-Kindness Meditation

“The good heart practice”
We can simply do what’s called ‘good heart practice,” called sampa zangpo in the Tibetan tradition.Tibetan Buddhist masters consider it the most important thing on the spiritual path, the dharma in a nutshell… It’s the universal dharma that can set our heart free from the constraint of self-centeredness, and from the inner poisons, like hatred and envy.” Anam Thubten

Rumi quotation:
“Always check your inner state with the lord of your heart.
Copper doesn’t know it’s copper until it’s changed to gold.
Your loving doesn’t know its majesty until it knows its helplessness.”

Thich Nhat Hanh:
“You need your own love very much. You have to be there for yourself . When you sit for meditation, you practice love.

January 10, 2023 Homework

Heroism, Courage, Love and Fear

Olivia Hoblitzelle: “The later years are most heroic.”

Heroism often requires effort and courage.
How do we remember to be the Heroes of our own lives?
How do we respond to our fears?

Metta – Love or Loving-Kindness – one of the four Brahmaviharas, the four Immeasurables, the Divine Abodes. The Buddha gave his Metta Sutta as the antidote to fear.

Metta as the antidote to fear. To confront Fear with Courage requires Love.

Here are some traditional Metta Sutta and phrase variations. Find or create what works for you.

May all beings be happy.
May they live in safety and joy.
All living beings,
Whether weak or strong,
Tall, stout, average or short,
Seen or unseen, near or distant,
Born or to be born,
May they all be happy.
– From the Insight Meditation Center in California

Some sangha versions:
May I be happy. May I be safe. May I be free.
May we be happy. May we be safe. May we be free.
May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be free.

May all beings be safe
May all beings be happy
May all beings have strength of heart.
May all beings know ease of well-being.

Poem by Michael Leunig:
Love and Fear
There are only two feelings, Love and fear;
There are only two languages, Love and fear;
There are only two activities, Love and fear;
There are only two motives, two procedures,
Two frameworks, two results,
Love and fear, Love and fear.

Krishnamurti: “Fear is an extraordinary jewel … which has dominated human beings for forty thousand years and more. And if you can hold it and look at it, then one begins to see the ending of it.”

Rumi poem: The Guest House – last stanza:
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Even fear is a guest to be welcomed and treated honorably, an extraordinary jewel, a guide. To be welcomed and offered Metta. An extraordinary practice.

Galway Kinnel poem extract, from Flying Home:
From then on, love is very much like courage,
perhaps it is courage, and even
perhaps
only courage.

Reflections:
– Is the word “heroic” meaningful to you? Useful? In what way? Or not at all?
– Was there a challenging situation where you felt afraid, and managed to remember love, find courage?
– How might you have witnessed courage in another/

Homework for Elders:
Most important is your daily meditation practice. Focus especially on bringing awareness to subtle mood/emotional states.
Sometimes helpful to label: “worried” “content” “frustrated,” etc.
Pause practice: stop several times during the day, tune into your body, your feelings, and breathe with loving awareness

3rd Foundation of Mindfulness: emotions

Ajahn Chah: “Anything which is troubling you, anything which is irritating you, that is your teacher.”

“The Guest House” by 13th-century Sufi mystic Rumi (searchable online)

6 Steps for dealing with emotions
1) “welcoming practice” or “handshake practice”.
2) “Entertain them all” Invitation to investigate. Bring awareness to the body; come to the breath.
3) Bring awareness to emotions is a process of purification:
4) Meditation: most important ally: creates space. Every emotion has its wisdom — something positive to be discovered. “like a tiny flame of love in the heart waiting to guide you”
5) Expand your field of awareness: Tune into vast field of interconnectedness.
6) Metta/lovingkindness: “May I/you be free of fear and have ease of heart.” Whenever you turn your attention away from self to others, heart feels lighter. Transforms darkness of separation into feelings of connection

Hafiz, Sufi mystic, called it: “the encouragement of light”

Isabel Allende: “We all have an unsurpassable reserve of strength inside that emerges when life puts us to the test.”

Follow up to Emma’s’ presentation:
Link to Google Groups Tutorial
Link to join Elders Group
Link to join other Google Groups

Key points for review:
• “This Precious Human Body:” key contemplation in Buddhist tradition
• View: body as a mandala– a sacred universe
• Experiencing “the body in the body”
Reference to the subtle body, or the energy body
Includes chakra system from yogic traditions
Breath: bridge between the physical & subtle bodies

• Honoring the body before yoga, tai chi, chi gong, etc. (the words I use)
Hands in namaste: “With great respect and love I bow to this body, abode of pure awareness, vehicle for awakening.”

Feel free to experiment with phrases that feel right to you.

Pain meditation with Stephen Levine:
https://www.livingdying.org/softening-pain-meditation/

Grace and Grit: A Love Story, by Ken and Treya Wilbur

The Wakeful Body: Somatic Mindfulness as a Path to Freedom, by Lama Willa Blythe Baker
Hevajra Tantra says: “Great wisdom lives in the body”

Homework: Find ways to practice mindfulness of the body through your day

Remember the “Pause Practice:” stopping for 3-4 breaths, dropping awareness into the body.

Experiment with taking more time with the body scan at the beginning of meditation, or returning to it, as a way to bring awareness down into the body.

Remember to open, soften, and embrace whatever is happening and send kindness and compassion to your body.

Homework:
Bring careful attention to the nature of thoughts arising in meditation:
Do thoughts tend to go into the past or toward the future?
Notice when there is clinging/attachment or aversion.
Identify recurring mental habits that cause the most distraction, stress, suffering.
What quality do you need to cultivate in working with the mind?

Three resources:
Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness
Bhante Gunaratana, The Four Foundations of Mindfulness in Plain English
Joseph Goldstein, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening

Click here for the Elders Sangha listserv/google group.

Click here to learn more about kalyana-mitta groups at CIMC. 

Play with the concept of centering, finding your center

Notice how meditation strengthens that, even if the mind is busy

Recommit to your practice: both sitting meditation and cultivating mindfulness throughout the day

Reflect on the phrase “the courage to suffer.” How do we find meaning in suffering, and where does our practice come in?

Remember to pause: stop! and simply come to the body and breath, centering yourself.

Quotes:      “A mandala is a secret realm… Let’s each try to regard ourselves as a mandala, the sacred dimension that is made up of many sacred components….Because we are this living, intricate mandala made of so many components, we are ready to fall apart at any given moment…

This Mandala, this sacred universe, is who we are… This realization — knowing that there is no singular self in each of us, and instead we are this complex, beautiful, living

Mandala —  is very liberating. It can give rise to courage, love, and joy in our hearts”

                                                              Anam Thubten 

 “There was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a (person) had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer. What is to give light must endure burning.”  Viktor Frankl

 

Google link for Elders Sangha:  http://groups.google.com/group/cimcelders?hl=en

Link to sign up for CIMC Newsletters: www.tinyurl.com/cimcaffinitygroups

Five Wisdom Treasures: Reflections on Practice

1) Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay)
“Approach your practice with a joyful heart. For me, breathing in and out is a great joy. Organize your practice so it is very joyful.”

2) Thay “Bring a unique dimension of love and devotion to your practice. You need your own love very much. When you sit for meditation, you practice love.”

3) Inspiring our practice: how do you do that? Know all your sources of inspiration: teachers, teachings, books, friends, situations, nature, etc.

4) Cultivating the quality of acceptance toward whatever arises either in meditation or during the day. A spontaneous mantra: “accept the losses”

5) Thay’s response to someone in pain: “Trust in the energy of mindfulness to hold everything that arises… Your wounded heart, your pain – that’s what brings you to the heart of the Buddha.”

Contemplate and experience the subtle power of Thay’s phrase “the energy of mindfulness”

Richard Rohr: “Your True Self is Life and Being and Love. Love is what you were made for and love is what you are.”

Homework:
** Choose a couple of ways to inspire your practice.

** If your meditation practice has been intermittent, make a commitment to deepen it. Even 5-10 minutes a day (best at the same time and in the same place), is better than no meditation at all.

** Remember: you can come home to yourself at any moment by simply pausing and tuning into the preciousness of your breath.

** When challenged by difficult circumstances or emotions, remember Thay’s phrase “the energy of mindfulness” and trust that it is stronger than the pain.

Remembering wise view: see impermanence of everything
Seeing world as play of consciousness
Everyone is a holy mystery:
Lakota Chief Noble Red Man
“Everyone is sacred. You are sacred. I am sacred. Every time you blink your eye or I blink my eye, God blinks Her eye. God see through your eyes and my eyes. We are sacred.”