What a Great Idea!
I want to put in a plug today for The Sun magazine, an independent, reader-supported publication (available both on-line and in-print), which I totally love for so many reasons — not the least of which is the photo above, published in this month’s issue.
Check out the magazine here. And read a sweet little story about the photo here.
Hey, That’s Me!
Check out page 20 in the latest issue of Spirit Rock News & Schedule.
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(Thanks, Rachel, for the head’s up!)
Bring Light
FULL MOON REFLECTION from Forest Sangha:
Transformation
One who transforms old and heedless ways
into fresh and wholesome acts
brings light into the world
like the moon freed from clouds.
— Dhammapada v. 173
“It would be a great pity if we viewed all our ‘old and heedless ways’ merely as troublesome tendencies that we had to get rid of. Just as recycling of material objects is sensibly recognized as more skilful than casually throwing things away, likewise a lot of wisdom and goodness can be found in that which previously caused us to suffer.
“Arrogance is always offensive, but once purified and no longer held as who and what we are, can be transformed into self-confidence.
“Stubbornness is always unattractive, but once purified and not seen as ‘self’, can manifest as resolute determination.”
If Buddhists had Godmothers…
The November issue of Lion’s Roar magazine (not the on-line version, but the print version that’s available right now at Whole Foods) has a great feature article on Mirabai Bush — who was my first meditation teacher and is now my encourager, listener, inspirer, and loving friend…. in other words, if Buddhists had godmothers, she’d be mine!
The article begins:
“In 1972, Mirabai Bush traveled overland to India, planning to stay for two weeks. Then one day on a street in New Delhi, she happened to meet a young woman named Sharon Salzberg, who told her about an upcoming meditation course with the Vipassana teacher S.N. Goenka. It was going to be his very first retreat for Westerners.
“”I had never even sat cross-legged before,’ Bush remembers. ‘But it was like having wine and cheese in Paris, something you’re supposed to do. ‘We’re in India, so let’s try meditation!’
“Though Bush signed up for the Goenka retreat on a whim, it had an enormous impact on her. Indeed, it impacted the whole burgeoning spiritual movement in the West. Many of the students in attendance went on to become influential spiritual voices in America, including Buddhist teachers Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein, psychologist and best-selling author Daniel Goldman, and spiritual icon Ram Dass.
“Today, Mirabai Bush may not be as famous as some of the other meditators at the seminal retreat. But in the forty-five years since then, she has been at the forefront of the spiritual revolution in the Western world, helping to shape and lead it.
“Over the course of her long career, Bush has framed the meditation practices she first learned in India so they are applicable and accessible to people in the modern world. As cofounder of The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, she has helped introduce mindfulness into diverse fields–social engagement, the tech industry, higher education, and more.
“She was a key contributor to Search Inside Yourself, a groundbreaking employee program at Google, and a founding member of the Seva Foundation, which has given the gift of sight to four million people in Asia.
“She has co-authored books relating contemplative practice to education, neuroscience, and organizations. Her new book, Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying, is a dialogue with her close friend Ram Dass.
“As Bush explains it, love has been the guiding force in her life work. Many years ago, Neem Karoli Baba, her Hindu teacher, taught her to love everyone. ‘That has been a central practice for me–trying to do it, failing, trying again, seeing where my resistances are.
“‘What does it mean,’ she asks, ‘to discover this central place of love in others and create environments where we can all be loving?'”
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Check it out!
Full and New Moon Reflections
A shout-out today for my friend Betsy who turned me on to this beautiful offering from the Forest Sangha: Reflections on the Dhammmapada, which (if you subscribe) will arise in your email on each new and full moon.
Here is yesterday’s
New Moon Reflection:
No More Thorns
If you walk the path
you will arrive at the end of suffering.
Having beheld this myself,
I proclaim the Way
which removes all thorns.
— Dhammapada v. 275
(from A Dhammapada for Contemplation, 2nd edition, Aruna Publications, 2006)
“It is not necessary to move through life perpetually afraid of being skewered by the barbs of painful human interaction. All beings, including the Buddha himself, are subject to the eight worldly winds: praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and pain, honor and insignificance.
“However, awakened beings are so completely transparent, so completely free from resistance, that they are always able to accord with it. They live unobstructed in their relationship with everything and everybody. Having walked the path to its end, they know beyond all doubt that to cling is to suffer. Wisdom shows them how to hold to life without creating pain, without spoiling it.”
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The Forest Sangha represents the
International Monasteries in the Therevada Buddhist Tradition of Ajahn Chah.
To receive these fortnightly Reflections, click here.
To view earlier Reflections, click here.
Be Kind, But Do Not Be Quiet
This from Truth is Power by Pamela Weiss, one of my teachers in the Community Dharma Leader (CDL) Program:
Dharma means truth. As we enter the ‘post-truth era’, where words become swords that slice and shred, rending the tender fabric that binds us, truth matters. Honest words matter….
Speaking truth to power is an urgent responsibility. Sometimes this means a firm and uncompromising ‘NO’: NO to hatred; NO to bigotry; NO to intolerance; NO to injustice and divisiveness and fear. And sometimes it means a full-throated ‘YES’: YES to big-heartedness; YES to tenderness; YES to beauty and curiosity and freedom and peace…
Whatever cause or issue grabs you, whatever wrenches your heart — misogyny, homophobia, racism, sanctuary, climate change — step in and step up. Don’t sit on the side lines. Now is not the time to wait. Jump in. Engage.
BE KIND, BUT DO NOT BE QUIET
“Yet”
My mentor Mirabai Bush has an article in the current issue of Mindful magazine, titled Passion Rules. It includes a set of mindful investigation practices aimed at clarifying values, identifying obstacles and developing skills for waking up to a more value-driven life. For example:
What really matters to you in your life?
Practice: Think of an object related to your values and how it might be utilized thorough a vocation or avocation. Sit quietly, breathe in and out, holding the object in your mind, and see what arises. Allow its story to unfold without judgment.
What is in the way of living in alignment with those values?
Practice: Contemplate that question. Listen for how to overcome these obstacles. When negative judgments arise — I can’t start my own business because I don’t have the skills — try using the word “yet.” I don’t have them yet.
What do you do really well, and is there space for you to do it?
Practice: Imagine yourself as a child. What did you love to do and what did you know you were good at? Let images arise. Remember how it felt. Ask: Is it still true? What else is true now? Then identify the skills you’ll need to bring that latent passion back to life.
Change Is Hard
Things, they are a changing!
Not easily, I might add. And not without confrontation, frustration, personal hurt…and even organizational trauma! I was on a conference call last night intended to address these issues with some of the leadership at Spirit Rock and IMS; a large number of fellow Community Dharma Leaders-in-Training (one of whom appears in the photo above!); and the Core Faculty of the next Teacher Training Program, some of whom appear above and all of whom recently resigned over issues of institutional power/privilege and, yes, racism! But that’s for another post.
For now, let’s just take a moment to smile as we look at what truly is The New Face of Buddhism. The photo above is the new, fold-out cover of Shambala Sun magazine, now re-named: Lion’s Roar.
We’ve come a long way, Baby.
But oh how far we have to go.
Not Separate
For today, one more quote from the collection offered for our reflection at the Exploring the Nature of Awareness retreat:
“The evolutionary imperative of our times demands we evolve from seeing the world ‘out there,’ separate and alien from us, to directly knowing our intimacy with all things. This is the shift from a dualistic consciousness to an awake awareness that recognized nothing is apart from anything else, or from our deeper nature.” — from Listening to the Heart, by Kittisaro and Thanissara
Want to Be My Sitting Buddy?
Reading and thinking and talking about Dharma stuff is great….but really, the only way to actually “get” it is to practice. Which can be hard…because there always seems to be something else that needs to be done or some other time that seems like it would be better or some little nagging thought that seems so convincing like: gee, wouldn’t it really be better if I just laid down and took a nap!
One thing I’ve found that can help break old thought patterns like these is to have a Sitting Buddy. Or better yet, to have a LOT of Sitting Buddies. Which is why Sitting Groups are so great.
But it also helps to have VIRTUAL Sitting Buddies.
Which you can find by getting the Insight Timer app! (It works on Macs and PCs, iPhones and Androids and Google Play and who knows what else.) There’s a version that’s FREE or, of course, you can go for the Deluxe.
Either way, you can set it up so that you can “see” when your friends are sitting (if they’re using the app), or when they’ve been sitting, and for how long, etc. You can send messages. Or join groups. Listen to guided mediations. Or just see how many people — all over the world — are sitting at the same time you are.
It’s really inspiring. Especially when I see that my friends have been sitting!
If you’ve got the app and want to be one of my Sitting Buddies, just send a request (through the app) to Jan in St. Louis. That’s me!
Hope to be sitting with you soon.