When I started CIMC nearly four decades ago, my hope was to create a sanctuary in the middle of the city where laypeople could not only learn how to do formal meditation practice but also take the practice out into their daily lives – home, school, work, everywhere. It was meant to be the kind of sanctuary where people could come to know for themselves their true heart, their original mind. That was the goal, and it remains the same. Whether you call it nirvana, emptiness, pure awareness, or anything else is not so relevant.
When I look back at my almost fifty years of dedication to the Dharma, I understand that in a profound way, this vision and origin of CIMC, and everything else that I’ve participated in, stem from my experience of the Nazi Holocaust during World War II and the insanity of a culture and a planet gone mad, with countless people systemically murdered. Right after the end of the war, I intentionally arranged things so I could be in the US Army occupying Germany. This let me see up close what war does to people. I arrived there with hatred or at least dislike of the Nazis: Who are these disgusting, deranged people who could do something like this? But then I found them to be people just like us, and I saw what war did to them, too. In this sense, no one wins a war. Having seen the aftermath of so much unnecessary killing, conflict and destruction, I began searching for some way of contributing to sanity in the world. During those years, I tried many different approaches and methods. In the end, the Dharma was the best way I ever found – and eventually founding CIMC became my own small way to contribute to less suffering in the world and in our individual lives.
Given the world we live in today, I believe CIMC is more needed than ever. The Buddha’s teachings are medicine for the troubled heart. They teach that all forms are inevitably subject to the law of impermanence, of anicca, and now it’s all on a bigger scale given technology’s immense power of self-destruction. Not only is the planet endangered by climate disruption; we have political unrest everywhere. We have racism and antisemitism. We have the pandemic and wars. The world has become an incredibly dangerous place to live with greed, hatred, and delusion at a colossal level and everyone afflicted to some degree.
It is my hope that we can continue to offer a place where people develop the ability to live with some degree of wisdom and compassion – even in the midst of a world that has neglected these qualities to such an extent that we could destroy ourselves through ignorance; the ignorance of not knowing how to live.. What the Buddha is saying is this: Human race, you don’t know how to live. Just look at what’s happened – generation after generation after generation. It goes on and on. You’ve got to find a new way of living. Let me show you one. Here it is: the Four Noble Truths.
I see the sanctuary of CIMC through the lens of these Four Noble Truths: the Noble Truth of suffering, the origin of suffering, the end of suffering, and the path leading to this cessation. This is the root of all the early teachings, and as the Buddha said countless times, it contains all his teachings. That is why I teach it again and again and again. I’m leaving a corrective to make sure that after I’m gone, at least people remember, Hey, wake up!
Remember, this is all about waking up, getting free – and getting free from what? From our own self-imposed suffering, dukkha. There is something that we can do about this inner suffering. We can work on ourselves. We can be of use to ourselves – that’s where it all begins for everyone. From there, we can be of use to the people in our lives and to our world and perhaps we can even help our planet in its struggle to survive.
Since its beginning, the Dharma has always adapted to the culture that it’s inhabiting. Though if it goes too far, it runs the danger of becoming something else. CIMC is in good hands, it has sustained the crucial balance: it is both rooted in the ancient tradition of Buddhadharma yet responsive to what is called for in the current culture of America. We are doing just what the Center was established to do, which is to be a sanctuary in the middle of the city during difficult times, a place to learn what is essential, a place to take refuge. None of us can do it alone. But please remember that the real refuge is in the heart – in the awakened heart – and CIMC is here to help you with that project.
May we continue to look into ourselves.
May we see things exactly as they are.
And may such direct, clear seeing free us.