2021
With the Help of All of the Goodness
In one of the talks Phillip Moffitt gave at the recent retreat on the Four Noble Truths, he said something I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say before, at least not in those words. He talked about how we are taking responsibility for our own spiritual development and he used the phrase: “…with the help of all of the goodness that exists in the world — in the Universe…”
Which really touched a place of deep joy in me.
Here’s what he said:
“We are cultivating our own fields of understanding, our own fields of growth. We are not waiting for something to happen to us by some sort of divine means. We are responsible for our own cultivation…with the help of Sangha, with the help of all of the goodness that exists in the world — in the Universe — with the help of this mysterious nature that we are. This awareness. This mysterious awareness that allows knowing without contracting, knowing without involvement. This base of empty awareness that is responsive, but without moving towards objects.
“Very interesting — as we get deeper and deeper into seeing the nature of our own mind…maybe, say, it’s our Buddha nature…(what we mean by mind and all that can get rather complex)..but something about our nature: that not everything moves towards objects. That there is a kind of knowing that, where in a couple of places in the suttas, it is described as ‘the Unborn, the Uncreated, the Unmanifest.’ This ‘Intuitive Awareness’ as the Venerable Sumedho describes it.”
When Phillip said that we are helped by all of the goodness that exists in the world, in the Universe, something in me — something mysterious — knew that that’s true.
And that I’ve always known it.
I just didn’t know that I knew it, until I heard him said it. But now I do!
***
Photo by Artemis Faul on Unsplash
2020
For the Next Six Tuesdays…
Tomorrow night (Feb 25), I’ll lead the Tuesday Night Insight group as usual, but for the next six Tuesdays I’ll be away on retreat at Spirit Rock. (Where I took this photo during a previous retreat.)
Update: The Tuesday Night group will not meet during the Coronavirus crisis. Instead many will be listening — from home — to selected recorded meditation instructions and/or talks from senior teachers who’ve taught at Spirit Rock. Here’s the schedule:
Tuesday, March 3
Joseph Goldstein: “There is a Body”
Meditation lasts 34 minutes.
Want more? Click here to listen to Joseph’s reflects on Mindfulness of Knowing. (16 minutes)
Tuesday, March 10
Phillip Moffitt: “Earth to Wind; Stillness to Movement”
Meditation lasts 40 minutes. The instructions are intermittent, with several periods of silence. This is followed by about 5 minutes of additional reflection on the Dharma. Stop the tape at about the 45-minute mark. (The final 9 minutes of the tape are logistical announcements that you don’t need to listen to.)
NOTE: There’s quite a bit of noise at the start, so begin tape at 0:40.
Tuesday, March 17
Thanissara: “Working with Patterns of Mind”
Meditation lasts 39 minutes.
This is a talk/guided meditation for working with difficult thoughts and emotions. (Not a lot of silence.)
NOTE: There’s a brief amount of noise at the start of the tape.
Tuesday, March 24
Jack Kornfield: “Guided Meditation with Sound”
Meditation lasts 25 minutes.
In these instructions, Jack uses a variety of bells and the spoken word.
Want more? Click here for Jack’s talk on Finding the Amazing Joy of Living, Renewed in Mystery. (35 minutes)
Tuesday, March 31
Sharon Salzberg: “Real Happiness Introduction and Guided Meditation, Part 1”
Meditation lasts 25 minutes.
Want more? Click here for Real Happiness, Part 2 — Sharon speaking on mindfulness practice and walking meditation. (33 minutes)
Tuesday, April 7
Spring Washam: “Morning Instructional Sit”
Meditation instructions last 10 minutes (followed by 30 minutes of silence, then retreat announcements. Stop the tape at the 30-minute mark.)
Want more? Click here for the Wisdom of Inclusion — Opening the Heart to All Beings. (30 minutes)
NOTE: There are microphone problems in the beginning of the instruction tape, so start at 0:1:30.
***
I’ll be back on Tuesday, April 14. Hope to see you then!
2019
It Doesn’t Even Have to Be Called Buddhism
The following is an excerpt from Let’s Just Call It Love, by Jack Kornfield, published in the March 2019 issue of Lion’s Roar magazine:
“The important question is not the future of Buddhism…
“It is clear there won’t be a single Buddhism in the West. There will be different Buddhisms. Every other Buddhist culture has many sects and traditions living side by side. These express the ten thousand skillful means of awakening: through devotion and meditation, direct pointing and transmissions, myth and story, community and ritual, wise heart and wise society.
“There are conservative, traditional sects who preserve the teachings, and in each generation, there are adaptive sects who modernize and renew them. Even though they can glare at each other across the divide, these perspectives complement each other. We need them both.
“Buddhist traditions in the West are already being changed. While we don’t know what the next decades will bring, there are hints.
“Buddhism in the West is already not as patriarchal as in the past, embodying more female leaders and more feminine wisdom. It is less hierarchical and more democratic. While building monastic traditions, it is more lay-oriented.
“There is more emphasis on meditation and less on the practice of devotion and offering. There is a growing use of self-compassion to counterbalance spiritual ambition and misguided effort.
“While true to its roots, Buddhism is also incorporating the complementary skills of modern psychology, trauma work, and neuroscience. Diversity and inclusion is a visible direction for Buddhist communities everywhere, as is more active engagement in the alleviation of suffering in our society….
“And true to capitalism, the dharma is being packaged and sold. Some people are worried about the watering down of the dharma, the secular selling without a deeper foundation. History laughs. Let it spread in ten thousand forms. The dharma can take care of itself! It is magnificent, the timeless truth, the reality of life.
“And honestly, though we Americans are expert at misusing things, there is a centuries-long tradition of misusing the teachings prior to us. Magnificently watered-down dharma was and is widespread across Buddhist Asia.
“There are whole sects that live for money-making funerals, and millions who go to temples to get fortunes read or to make offerings for business success, better luck in marriage, or to offset their continuing misdeeds. Yet these societies are also the treasure houses of profound dharma and great sanghas. Popular Buddhism and devotion to deep practice inter-are. They always exist in a dance together.
“I say let the dharma spread and become so common it becomes an invisible understanding, enhancing humanity in every field. Let it foster virtue, inner well-being, respect for basic human dignity, care for all life, and the awakening of freedom.
“Let these seeds of goodness flower in a thousand forms.
“It doesn’t even have to be called Buddhism.
“Let’s just call it love.”
2019
Practice with Phillip from Home — for FREE!
This coming Monday (Sept 16), Phillip Moffitt will lead a guided meditation (about 30 min), followed by a dharma talk (about 1 hr), at the Spirit Rock Community Center near San Francisco. But you don’t have to go to California to take part!
The evening is available live online — and you can watch for FREE — but only if you register in advance (click here).
It begins at 7:15 pm Pacific Time (9:15 pm St. Louis time), but the video recording is available for at least two weeks after the event ends — so you don’t even have to stay up late to watch it!!!
But again, ONLY IF YOU REGISTER BEFORE IT BEGINS. (register here)
Phillip doesn’t do this often. Now’s your chance. Don’t miss it!
Same but Different
If you liked the video I posted on Monday, in which Bhikkhu Analayo talks about Respecting the Different Buddhist Traditions, I think you’ll also like watching Bhikkhu Bodhi speak on the same topic, this time with quite a bit more historical detail. (Bhikkhu Bodhi was Bhikkhu Analayo’s teacher and mentor.)
The title of Ven. Bodhi’s talk is Bridging the Two Vehicles (1 hr 25 min). I found it fascinating. (Worth the time just to witness his joy and generous spirit.) Watch it on YouTube here.
It Takes a Garden
A major theme of the Advanced Practitioner Program at Spirit Rock and the June retreat at the Forest Refuge is how to make sense of the differences in teaching between different Buddhist traditions — particularly between an Early Buddhist understanding of the Nature of Awareness and Tibetan Dzogchen.
Naturally, I have my own personal preference, but I don’t want to make that a problem. Which is why I love Bhikkhu Analayo’s great little YouTube video on Respecting the Different Buddhist Traditions. (30 minutes) He talks about seeing the different traditions as different kinds of flowers, laid out in a “garden” of historical time — thus avoiding both fundamentalism (which he says would be like preferring a black-and-white photo to an actual living garden) while also avoiding universalism (which he says would be like putting all the flowers into a blender!)
I love this talk, even though he’s not on “my side” in the Nature of Awareness “debate.”
Here’s a frame from the video. I can’t figure out how to imbed it, so just click here.
Maybe This is What’s Going On in Her Mind
As many of you know, my mom (who will be 90 next month), has dementia. This is not an uncommon situation, I know. Recently her condition has deteriorated. Not dramatically. But significantly.
And, well, it’s challenging.
Which is why I am delighted to have found that Phillip Moffitt’s annual daylong retreat for care providers was recorded — all 7 hours and 45 minutes of it — and is available on dharmaseed here.
I’ve only listened to the first half of it, but already I’m feeling more resilitant. (I only wish they had recorded it on video — not just audio — because he does a segment with guided movement instructions that I’m going to try — even without seeing it, because it sure sounds like they’re having a lot of fun!)
The retreat was called Renew and Revitalize: Sustaining Yourself as a Care Provider. I especially like the part where he explains how being present refreshes us.
Check it out.
Try This at Home!
I just checked dharmaseed and it looks like quite a lot of the talks from the June retreat I sat at the Forest Refuge are already posted and publicly available! (click here for the full list)
Most of the talks I’d already heard. But not the guided instructions Guy offered on Abiding in Emptiness (click here) and the Taking the Practice Home talk Guy gave on the very last day of the retreat, which really sums up the Awareness practice and speaks very clearly about how to integrate it into classic Insight practice. (click here)
You could pretty much do the retreat on your own, right there at home if you’d like, by listening to the talks, starting with first morning instructions on Mindfulness of Breathing, and then going through all the 31 talks that are posted.
Or if you’d just like to take in some of the highlights, I’d recommend:
Falling in Love with the Breath, (Sally)
The Development of Metta, (Sally)
Three Limbs of Equanimity, (Sally)
The Nature of Awareness, Part 2, (Guy)
Morning Instructions: Big Mind, (Sally)
Morning Instructions: Abiding in Emptiness,(Guy)
Taking the Practice Home, (Guy)
Find. And Follow.
For today, one last post before I leave on Friday for a month-long retreat at the Forest Refuge:
Ajahn Sucitto’s very succinct response to a pair of written questions submitted during a recent Q&A session (also at the Forest Refuge).
Question #1:
“Is there anyone equivalent to the saints who one can ask for help with one’s practice?”
Question #2:
“If you could only give one suggestion or piece of advice to someone to further them towards liberation, what would that suggestion or piece of advice be?”
Sucitto’s response:
“Well, the answer to both these questions would be: Find a spiritual friend.
“And, if a teacher arises that you find yourself getting good results with, follow that teacher.”
***
I wholeheartedly agree.
After the retreat, I’ll be staying with my spiritual friend and teacher, Mirabai. (That’s us, in the photo above.)
Then I’ll be home on July 3 and hope to post again on July 8. I expect I’ll have a lot to say. Stay tuned.
Widening. Offering. Opening.
Almost 30 new talks from Ajahn Sucitto’s month-long retreat at the Forest Refuge have already been posted on dharmaseed! (And the retreat is still going on.) Normally I start listening to these talks as soon as they’re posted — in the order they’re recorded, as if I were right there on the retreat — but since I still haven’t quite finished re-listening to the talks from the retreat I was just on, I’ve been holding off.
With a few exceptions.
For example, the ones with great titles such as: The Wisdom of Walking and of Sheepdogs.
Also this lovely little 12-minute talk: Puja — A Daily Going Forth. (“Puja” refers to ritual, devotional practices such as chanting, lighting candles, bowing, etc.) Here’s an excerpt:
“Puja is a touching-in point for the day. It’s not necessarily the first thing we do, but it’s the point where we establish a conscious intention to enter Dhamma. We are touching this place in us that wishes to dedicate. This is a very important place (or movement or occasion) in citta — in awareness, in this consciousness stream — where although we can be doing and meeting and losing and winning and so forth (very much dealing with our personal lives and in them), at this point we’re making an occasion where we highlight, underline, illuminate: the quality of dedicating ourselves.
“Or even dedicating on behalf of someone else! Which is really a helpful thing because sometimes we just can’t be bothered. We can get to that place where we’re fed up with ourself. Then we can just: Oh, well, for my mother, my father, my relatives, for the welfare of others… in recognition, in gratitude of those who’ve come before me, who’ve made this body/mind possible, made this Dhamma possible, made this occasion possible… for that I can say: Thank you.
“This is the place in us which is opening. The citta can very much be embroiled with its own kamma and preceptions…. things that happened with no conscious choice (we’re just IN them) and getting embroiled with dealing with that or speculating about it or struggling with it…
“Puja is where we can step out of that process altogether for the moment. Just to dedicate. Somatically, the experience is one of widening, rising, opening. Widening the heart. Bringing something forth. That’s the gesture. The bring-forth is the gesture of widening and opening. And there is a certain relief of the pressure of self in just doing that. Relief from the pressure of becoming, identifying, planning, and so forth. Relief from the tangle and pressure of that. By dedicating, opening, offering. This is the daily going forth….
“This opening quality is called: Buddha (Waking Up)…. We are activating buddha potential, abhicitta (the higher mind), bodhicitta (the awakening heart). The Buddha is someone who has perfected that. So we emulate that…
“The consequence of this is that you open to awareness. You unfold the citta from its formulating and fabricating. You unfold it. And it reveals: Awareness.”