In this email: Saturday study group reminder, this week’s reading, new email service coming soon.

 

Saturday Study Group

Our Saturday Study group meets this week, on June 13, 10- 11:30 a.m., with a continuation of Pema Chodron’s CD on “Happiness.” This is an open group and everyone is welcome to attend. For more information, contact rana_mukherji@...

 

This Week’s Reading

Next Monday we will continue our discussion on how we can observe the Eightfold Path mindfully in our everyday lives, rather than leave it as a set of ‘teachings” or techniques to apply from the outside that don’t genuinely touch us personally. For those who would like to refresh themselves on the Eightfold Path, here’s one version:   http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/eightfoldpath.html

 

New Email Service:

After repeated difficulties with our Yahoo Newsgroup announcements being blocked by email servers, we are in the process of switching to a new email  service, Constant Contact. This service is much less likely to be blocked by servers and should increase the reliability of our announcements reaching our subscribers. In addition, subscribing, unsubscribing and selecting what announcements you want to receive will be much simpler.

 

One Dharma will meet for meditation this Monday, Memorial Day, from 7 – 8 p.m. Our practice and discussion will be somewhat abbreviated because of the holiday. Everyone is welcome to attend. If this is your first time meditating with us, please plan to arrive 15 minutes early for orientation. For more information on how to find us, visit www.onedharmanashville.com.

 

 

Dear Friends,

 

I am very grateful to everyone who responded so generously in December after I let the sangha  know our donations were falling short. In this economy I know people are feeling cautious about any kind of spending. Our donations held up through March, but we hit a shortfall in April and we are also seeing a fairly significant shortfall this month. Many of our monthly pledges from our sangha have dropped off to sporadic donations so that we aren’t meeting our monthly minimum of $325 to cover our meetings and a few other expenses.

 

The Saturday study group and the Thursday practice nights are doing well and there is enough participation to keep them going, if we can bring our donations back up to around $325 per month. If you are sitting with One Dharma regularly, it would be very helpful if you would consider donating a monthly amount, if you can afford to do that. I think what happens for some people is that they intend to donate monthly, but lose track, which is easy to do. If you are sitting with us sporadically, anything you can offer in the way of donations when you come will help us out. For those of you who can’t practice with us right now but wish to support our programs, a donation of any amount sent to the dharma center would be welcome. All donations if paid by check are tax deductible. If you wish to pay by check, please make it out to One Dharma Nashville and mail to One Dharma, 12South Dharma Center,  2301 12^th Avenue South,  Suite 202, Nashville, TN 37204

 

As always, your support and participation are greatly appreciated and help keep the dharma vital and alive in Nashville!

With gratitude and metta,

Lisa

In this email:

 

Thursday practice night, Saturday study group,  retreat recap, Memorial Day meditation

 

Thursday Practice Night happens this week,  May 21, 6:30 – 7:30 p.m. We sit for forty minutes with a bell at 20 minutes for those who would like to stretch their legs. We do the Diamond Sutra Chant and have 15 minutes of open discussion. This meditation evening is ideal for newer meditators as well as anyone who wants an extra practice night during the week. There is no fee to attend, but donations are appreciated to help support our programs at the dharma center.

 

Saturday Study Group meets this week, May 23, 10 – 11:30 p.m. This week’s topic is a continuation on “Happiness” from Pema Chodron’s CD of the same name. For more information, scroll down to the last portion of this email for a list of upcoming topics. This is an open group and everyone is welcome to attend. There is no fee, but donations are appreciated.

 

Monday Meditation – Next Monday is Memorial Day and we have decided to keep the meditation a little shorter and simpler. We will follow the Thursday format of sitting 40 minutes with a break at 20 minutes, Diamond Sutra chant and open discussion. Our meeting will last about an hour. We will meet 7 – 8 p.m.

 

Retreat recap: We completed our Spring Mediation Retreat at Penuel Ridge Sunday morning and it turned out to be a very good retreat. We had decided to add another day to the typical weekend meditation retreats held in Nashville, starting Wednesday evening instead of Thursday evening and we also closed the retreat to coming and going. This proved to be a real challenge in the planning stages, as most people aren’t accustomed to this format. But it paid off; everyone who arrived Wednesday evening stayed the full retreat, and this created a container in which we could truly strengthen and deepen our practice together.  Everyone at the retreat practiced with genuine commitment for the entire time right up to the closing bell! Thanks to Lee Olsen and everyone who made this retreat possible. For newer meditators who aren’t ready to commit to a four day retreat, we will have a fall retreat this year that will accommodate a shorter participation time. We may also offer a one day retreat in July.

 

Saturday Dharma Discussion Group

This is an open group for people who enjoy talking about ways of bringing dharma into everyday life.  We start with a short meditation and a reading and then have an open, informal discussion for the remaining time.

 

Every 2^nd and 4^th Saturday from 10:00 – 11:30 AM

Upcoming topics:

 

May 23:

Pema Chodron CD on "Happiness"

 

June 13:

Pema Chodron CD on "Happiness"

 

June 27:

Dhammapada Chapter One "Twin Verses"

 

July 11:

Dhammapada Chapter Two "Heedfulness"

 

July 25:

Dhammapada Chapter Three "Mind"

 

 

Some of our translations and references for the Dhammapada can be easily accessed online.  Suggested websites are below:

 

http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/imc-dhammapada.html

 

http://www.buddhanet.net/dhammapada/

 

 

This week’s reading:

 

Enlightenment
Joan Sutherland
(1997)

So what is your enlightenment? it is the place you came from when you were born and it is the place you will return when you die. It is home. The particular wave that is you rises and falls for such a brief moment from that great ocean of essential nature, and that wave is entirely ocean, is home itself. As children the taste of salt water still lingers in our mouths, but as we grow older the memory of ocean recedes, leaving a feeling of longing, of inexplicable exile, in its wake.

At the same time, having achieved a body, a human life, which is such a compelling thing, we don’t want to give it up, even if it feels sometimes like the island of our banishment, and as we grow older we begin to dread the thought of losing the particularities of this consciousness, this skin, these pleasures, and even these struggles.

In the confusion which is the hallmark of human life—the simultaneous longing for home and fierce attachment to the circumstances of our exile—we can grow to doubt that home, that our enlightenment, is real. Or if we still believe in it, we doubt that we will ever find our way there again. Others will make it, but not I.

But here is the great gift of our practice: We cannot lose our true home, our enlightenment, because it is already right here. Nowhere else. All we have to do is remember. And here’s the other great thing: If we do remember, we lose nothing of our human life—this consciousness, this skin, these pleasures, and even these struggles. In fact we gain more life, in ways unimaginable in our exile.

Great Master Ma, one of the old Chinese teachers, said:

For countless eons no being as ever left the samadhi of Dharma nature. In the samadhi of Dharma nature we wear clothes and eat food, talk together and reply.

Keizan Jokin, the Japanese author of Transmissions of the Light, elaborated on this. He said:

This samadhi becomes earth, water, fire, and wind, and transforms into mountains, rivers, grass, and trees. It also changes into skin, flesh, bones, and marrow.

It’s a beautiful idea, isn’t it, that the universe is Dharma nature’s limitless deep meditation, and that none of us, no matter how hard we try, can ever fall out of it. We are always held in that samadhi—indeed, we and the mountains and rivers and the great earth, and the flesh on our bones—are that samadhi. And in our time, we go about talking together and replying, in Mazi’s touching words, and washing the dishes with 14 billion year old hands.

So if that’s the real deal, what happens? Where do we get stuck? Fear comes up and blocks our way home again. It makes us forget. It pulls us away from the untamable life that’s always swirling around and through us, and it pushes us into that purgatory where there is nothing but self-concern, nothing but our own small story, and we forget that that ocean, the samadhi of Dharma-nature, even exists.

So, what are we afraid of? That this small mind with its schemes and its strategies and its obsessions will, just for a moment, dissolve into something larger than itself? That, if only for an instant, it won’t call the shots? That this body will expand to include pine sap and the skin of snow in the arroyo? Is this a problem? Why is it that we choose, over and over again, the chatter and the static of our usual minds, which make us so tired and so sad?

And yet, at the very same time we sit in meditation again, we come to retreat again, we make love again, we go out into the mountains again, and we think, “This time. This time.” We yearn to come home so much.

How strange being human is, how poignant, that we should fear and long for exactly the same thing—and that which we fear and long for is nothing other than our own true lives. When we fear our life, it’s as though it’s not really our own—it’s something that’s happened to us that’s maybe a little dangerous to us. We have to protect ourselves from these wild impulses towards authenticity and wholeness. And when we long for our life, it’s as though it somehow escaped us and we have to recapture it—That melancholy feeling that things haven’t turned out as we expected, that we got off the track somewhere, and time is moving inexorably onward, but maybe we’ll wake up one morning and it will all have been put right.

And yet here they are, our lives. Right here. Everything you need is right here. Whatever your circumstances, they are sufficient, no matter how you feel about them. Because you already carry eternity inside you.

So, love this enlightenment, which is already inside you, is already at work in your life. Love whatever forms it comes in, in whatever ways. Listen. Pay attention. Hear what it has to say to you. Become aware of all the small ways it’s acting in your life all the time. Those moments in meditation between breaths when the world opens up, or the moist air on your face as you watch the sun sink into the sea, or the wordless and complete understanding of the pain of someone you love.

Sometimes our enlightenment will ask us to love those things that seem impossible to love. When we feel that our hearts will break of it, but even then we cannot refuse. A woman weeps because she has finally realized to the bottom of her toes that the light really does shine everywhere—that it shines in the war criminal and the hatemonger, too—and for 24 hours she weeps for the sorrows of the world, which she feels completely, no separation, for the first time in her life. And then something turns, and the goodness of the world comes flooding in, and she laughs and weeps, but this time with joy. She says, “It was as if I had been looking at the dark side of the moon, and suddenly it turned and I was looking at the light side. But it was all moon.” Sometimes your enlightenment will break your heart, that the moon’s light might fill it.

So try this. Don’t hold your enlightenment out in front of you like a thing, the object of your fear or your desire or your ambition. Don’t despair that it’s beyond your reach. Act as if it were already a part of you. Don’t try to use it as an escape, as a way of solving all your problems without having to do the work of actually solving your problems. Enlightenment will not save you from having to live your life.

So do something else. Try loving your enlightenment. Attend to it. Feed it and nourish it. We’re very good at finding out what the demons want and giving it to them, you know—another crazy relationship, another drink, another morning of silent despair. Find out what your enlightenment eats and stock up on that.

Remembering your enlightenment, rediscovering it in your bones and sinews, will not necessarily make you happy or powerful or famous, but it will make you real. And you will know the rivers that run in your veins and the distant suns that wear your own face. All the tribes of the world will be kin to you, and the grasses will grow long on your belly and you will turn with the seasons.

Life calls to your life. It sparkles and flashes. Right here, right now. And there is no inside and no outside to this sparkling and this flashing. No edges, no limits, nothing to defend, nothing to preserve—just the great shining living of it.

The salty radiance is still on your tongue—all you have to do is swallow. Let it pour down your throat and into your heart. Open your eyes and really see. All the tribes of the world are waiting for you.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Retreat Opportunity:

From Tom Neilson:

This is about information about a meditation and yoga retreat at Southern Dharma Retreat Center near Asheville, NC.  I go to this retreat regularly and have been to retreats with these teachers ten times.  I highly recommend it and would like to pass this information on to the rest of the sangha.   --Tom

 

Jeff Collins & Gisela Konrad

A MARRIAGE OF YOGA AND MEDITATION

June 16-21
5 nights   
$325 ($162.50 deposit)   Dana

Please mail deposits to:

Southern Dharma Retreat Center

1661 West Road

Hot Springs, NC  28743

In one sense the goal of spiritual work is to become increasingly intimate with and expressive of our true nature. Both the tool and the fruit of increasing intimacy with our true nature are to dwell increasingly in a state of simple and precise awareness. This classic, five-day silent retreat is designed to serve the nurturing of this intimacy by providing the space and time for steeping in that awareness. Each day the retreat will flow from periods of sitting meditation to walking meditation to several periods of yoga practice. The style of yoga offered is known as viniyoga, which is grounded in awareness of breath and of the physical movement that flows out of that awareness. Anyone who can breathe can participate in this yoga. Yoga mats will be provided.

The retreat will include meditation and yoga instruction, dharma talks, chanting, and group and private meetings with the teachers.

A time of silence in the mountains can be not only a precious refuge from a crazy world, but also a space where we are refined through intimacy and silence. When we sincerely do this work for ourselves, we can’t help but do it for everyone.

 

Jeff Collins has worked as a hospice social worker for fifteen years. He has completed three, three-month-long retreats at Insight Meditation Society, and he has been engaged in Diamond Heart work for the last fifteen years.

Gisela Konrad has completed two, three-month-long retreats at the Insight Meditation Society. She is certified as a yoga teacher by the American Viniyoga Institute, and she has been taking professional yoga nidra training with Richard Miller for the last three years. She teaches yoga and practices as a licensed shiatsu therapist. She and Jeff live in Ithaca, NY.

 

Southern Dharma retreats are distinguished by the natural beauty of the environment, the small size of the retreats, the excellence of the teachers, and the dedicated staff. Retreats have no more than 25 participants. People who come to Southern Dharma have all levels of experience with meditation. Some are beginners; some have been practicing for years, even decades. Unless a retreat is designated for experienced practitioners, the retreat is appropriate for all levels.

 

Location: Southern Dharma is located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina, about an hour northwest of Asheville. The center is at an elevation of 2,900 feet about halfway up a mountain in the middle of a 130-acre preserve of undeveloped forest and mountain terrain. 

 

Facilities Tinclude a meditation hall, lodge, and tent platforms. All retreatants are housed on the premises. The lodge, which can accommodate no more than about 25 participants, includes a dining room, kitchen, small library, bathrooms, double and triple bedrooms on the second floor, and a dormitory room on the third floor. Rooms are assigned first on the basis of gender, then for any special medical reasons, and finally in the order of registration. We are unable to take reservations for specific rooms in the lodge, but we will make every effort to accommodate preferences listed on the registration form. Four secluded tent platforms are located adjacent to a small creek with outdoor shower and bathroom nearby. Tent platforms may be reserved.

Meals are vegetarian with vegan options, and include locally grown organic vegetables provided by SunSwept Farm of Spring Creek, NC. Southern Dharma can not accommodate special dietary requests and encourages those with special needs or food allergies to bring their own food, which may be stored in the center’s refrigerator.

 

Dharma is a Sanskrit word from the classical language of India. In its most profound meaning, dharma may be translated as the way—from darkness to light, from ignorance and delusion to wisdom, and from suffering to peace and harmony.

Silence: All Southern Dharma retreats emphasize silence as a way to cultivate the inner life. However, even the most silent retreats include a talk by the teacher each day and meditation instructions. Many of our retreat teachers hold optional discussion groups and private interviews with retreatants.

 

For more information on Southern Dharma Retreat Center, including pictures of its beautiful facilities and mountain setting, go to http://www.southerndharma.org/

 

 

 

In this email: Thursday practice night and Saturday study group reminder, this week’s reading.

 

Thursday Practice Night happens this week, May 7, from 6:30 – 7:30 p.m. We meditate for 40 minutes with a bell at 20 minutes for those who wish to stretch their legs. We then chant and have a 15 minute open discussion about practice. This session is appropriate for people with all levels of meditation experience, from beginners to experienced practitioners.

 

Saturday Study Group meets this Saturday, May 9 from 10:00 – 11:30 a.m. This week’s topic is “Happiness” with an audio dharma talk from Pema Chodron. The meeting begins with 20 minutes of meditation followed by the audio dharma talk. Then it opens for discussion. This is an open meeting and everyone is welcome to attend.

 

There is no cost to attend our meetings, but donations are appreciated to help us cover the cost of rent and other expenses. 

 

This weeks’ reading is from Jack Kornfield.

Discovering Our Nobility: A Psychology of Original Goodness

By Jack Kornfield

Prominent Buddhist teacher and psychologist Jack Kornfield proposes a new psychology, one based not on a model of sickness but on Buddhism’s belief in the inherent nobility, beauty, and freedom of human nature.

O Nobly Born, O you of glorious origins, remember your radiant true nature, the essence of mind. Trust it. Return to it. It is home.
—The Tibetan Book of the Dead

The saints are what they are, not because their sanctity makes them admirable to others, but because the gift of sainthood makes it possible for them to admire everybody else.
—Thomas Merton

Each time we meet other human beings and honor their dignity, we help those around us. Their hearts resonate with ours in exactly the same way the strings of an unplucked violin vibrate with the sounds of a violin played nearby. Western psychology has documented this phenomenon of “mood contagion” or limbic resonance. If a person filled with panic or hatred walks into a room, we feel it immediately, and unless we are very mindful, that person’s negative state will begin to overtake our own. When a joyfully expressive person walks into a room, we can feel that state as well. And when we see the goodness of those before us, the dignity in them resonates with our admiration and respect.

This resonance can begin very simply. In India, when people greet one another they put their palms together and bow, saying namaste, “I honor the divine within you.” It is a way of acknowledging your buddhanature, who you really are. Some believe that the Western handshake evolved to demonstrate friendliness and safety, to show that we are not holding any weapon. But the greeting namaste goes a step further, from “I will not harm you” to “I see that which is holy in you.” It creates the basis for sacred relationship.

When I began my training as a Buddhist monk, I found a taste of this sacred relationship. Around my teacher Ajahn Chah was an aura of straightforwardness, graciousness, and trust. It was the opposite of my early family life, and though it initially felt strange and unfamiliar, something in me loved it. Instead of a field of judgment, criticism, and unpredictable violence, here was a community dedicated to treating each person with respect and dignity. It was beautiful.

In the monastery, the walking paths were swept daily; the robes and bowls of the monks were tended with care. Our vows required us to cherish life in every form. We carefully avoided stepping on ants; we valued birds and insects, snakes and mammals. We learned to value ourselves and others equally. When conflict arose, we called on practices of patience, and in seeking forgiveness we were guided by councils of elders who demonstrated how to approach our failings with mindful respect.

Whether practiced in a forest monastery or in the West, Buddhist psychology begins by deliberately cultivating respect, starting with ourselves. When we learn to rest in our own goodness, we can see the goodness more clearly in others. As our sense of respect and care is developed, it serves us well under most ordinary circumstances. It becomes invaluable in extremity.

One Buddhist practitioner tells of being part of a group taken hostage in a bank in St. Louis. She describes the initial confusion and fear that spread through the hostages. She remembers trying to quiet her own racing heart. And then she tells how she made a decision not to panic. She used her meditation and her breath to quiet her mind. Over the hours, even as she helped others in her group, she addressed her captors respectfully and expressed a genuine concern for them. She saw their desperation and their underlying needs. When she and the other hostages were later released unharmed, she gratefully believed that the care and respect they showed to their captors had made their release possible.

When we bring respect and honor to those around us, we open a channel to their own goodness. I have seen this truth in working with prisoners and gang members. When they experience someone who respects and values them, it gives them the ability to admire themselves, to accept and acknowledge the good inside. When we see what is holy in another, whether we meet them in our family or our community, at a business meeting or in a therapy session, we transform their hearts.

The Dalai Lama embodies this sacred perception as he moves through the world, and it is one of the reasons so many people seek to be around him. Several years ago His Holiness visited San Francisco, and we invited him to offer teachings at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. The Dalai Lama is the head of the Tibetan government-in-exile, and the State Department had assigned dozens of Secret Service agents to protect him and his entourage. Accustomed to guarding foreign leaders, princes, and kings, the Secret Service agents were surprisingly moved by the Dalai Lama’s respectful attitude and friendly heart. At the end, they asked for his blessing. Then they all wanted to have a photo taken with him. Several said, “We have had the privilege of protecting political leaders, princes, and prime ministers, yet there is something different about the Dalai Lama. He treats us as if we are special.”

Later, during a series of public teachings, he stayed at a San Francisco hotel famous for hosting dignitaries. Just before he departed, the Dalai Lama told the hotel management that he would like to thank the staff in person, as many as wished to meet him. So on the last morning a long line of maids and dishwashers, cooks and maintenance men, secretaries and managers made their way to the circular driveway at the hotel entrance. And before the Dalai Lama’s motorcade left, he walked down the line of employees, lovingly touching each hand, vibrating the strings of each heart.

Some years ago, I heard the story of a high school history teacher who knew this same secret. On one particularly fidgety and distracted afternoon she told her class to stop all their academic work. She let her students rest while she wrote on the blackboard a list of the names of everyone in the class. Then she asked them to copy the list. She instructed them to use the rest of the period to write beside each name one thing they liked or admired about that student. At the end of class she collected the papers.

Weeks later, on another difficult day just before winter break, the teacher again stopped the class. She handed each student a sheet with his or her name on top. On it she had pasted all twenty-six good things the other students had written about that person. They smiled and gasped in pleasure that their classmates had notices so many beautiful qualities about them.

Three years later this teacher received a call from the mother of one of her former students. Robert had been a cut-up, but also one of her favorites. His mother sadly passed on the terrible news that Robert had been killed in the Gulf War. The teacher attended the funeral, where many of Robert’s former friends and high school classmates spoke. Just as the service was ending, Robert’s mother approached her. She took out a worn piece of paper, obviously folded and refolded many times, and said, “This was one of the few things in Robert’s pocket when the military retrieved his body.” It was the paper on which the teacher had so carefully pasted the twenty-six things his classmates had admired.

Seeing this, Robert’s teacher’s eyes filled with tears. As she dried her wet cheeks, another former student standing nearby opened her purse, pulled out her own carefully folded page, and confessed that she always kept it with her. A third ex-student said that his page was framed and hanging in his kitchen; another told how the page had become part of her wedding vows. The perception of goodness invited by this teacher had transformed the hearts of her students in ways she might only have dreamed about.

We can each remember a moment when someone saw this goodness in us and blessed us. On retreat, a middle-aged woman remembers the one person, a nun, who was kind to her when, as a frightened and lonely teenager, she gave birth out of wedlock. She has carried her name all these years. A young man I worked with in juvenile hall remembers the old gardener next door who loved and valued him. The gardener’s respect stuck with him through all his troubles. This possibility is voiced by the Nobel Laureate Nelson Mandela: “It never hurts to think too highly of a person; often they become ennobled and act better because of it.”

To see with sacred perception does not mean we ignore the need for development and change in an individual. Sacred perception is one half of a paradox. Zen master Shunryu Suzuki remarked to a disciple, “You are perfect just the way you are. And… there is still room for improvement!” Buddhist psychology offers meditations, cognitive strategies, ethical trainings, which form a powerful set of practices that foster inner transformation. But it starts with a most radical vision, one that transforms everyone it touches: a recognition of the innate nobility and the freedom of heart that are available wherever we are.

From The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology, by Jack Kornfield. Copyright © 2008 by Jack Kornfield. Published by arrangement with The Bantam Dell Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.

We have a fifth Thursday this month, so our Thursday practice night won’t meet again until next week, May 7 (we are meeting the first and third Thursdays of each month).

 

If you’re still considering the Spring Meditation Retreat, our confirmation deadline is tomorrow, April 30. Please email lisa@...

 with any questions.

 

Here’s this week’s reading:

 

Daily Buddhist Wisdom

“I am not one’s servant.” So said the Buddha. “With what I have gained I wander about in all the world, without being subservient to anyone: therefore, if thou like, rain, O sky!” - adapted from the Sutta-nipata translated by V. Fausboll

 

In this email: Saturday study group reminder, retreat deposit reminder, this week’s reading

 

Our Saturday study group will be meeting this Saturday, April 25  10 – 11:30 a.m. This week’s topic is “dana” (generosity) one of the six paramitas.  There will also be an opportunity to identify future discussion topics of interest. This is an open meeting and everyone is welcome to attend. There is no cost, but donations of any amount are appreciated to help cover rent and other related expenses.

_______________________

The deposit/notification deadline for attending our spring meditation retreat is next Thursday, April 30. Full retreat details are available by clicking here. Please contact lisa@... with any questions.

_______________________

 

This week’s reading:

 

The View From Cold Mountain

Poems of Han-shan and Shih-Te

 

Wanting to go to the eastern cliff

setting out now after how many years

yesterday I used the vines to pull myself up

but halfway there wind and mist made the going tough

the narrow path grabbed at my clothes

the moss so slippery I couldn’t proceed

so I stopped right here beneath this cinnamon tree

used a cloud as a pillow and went to sleep.

 

 

One Dharma’s Thursday meditation session is this week, April 16, 6:30 – 7:30 p.m. at the 12South Dharma Center. Everyone is welcome to attend.

____________________________________

This week’s reading is about mindful eating, which may seem like a no brainer to those of us who meditate regularly, but in reality, how many meals do any of us eat truly mindfully? Here’s a brief reflection on mindful eating from Zen teacher Jan Chozen Bays. This segment really only scratches the surface, but it’s a good place to start. She also includes a few simple suggestions to begin cultivating mindfulness when we eat and drink.

You've been working hard on a project on the computer, and it's time for at treat. You've been holding off, waiting for the delicious taste of - here, please fill in the blank. Coffee ice cream? a piece of dark chocolate? a donut? an onion bagel? some fresh strawberries?

.

 For me, it would be a creamy, sweet-sour lemon tart.

You take the first bite. Very yummy! You take the second bite. Still yummy, maybe a little less yummy than the first bite, but never mind. You glance at the computer and something catches your eye. A Hollywood scandal, a political gaff, a weird and wacky video. You click on it, watch, and continue eating.

Disappearing food!

Suddenly you look down. Where did that treat go? Your fingers are sticky and there's still a trace of flavor on your tongue, so it must have disappeared down the hatch while you weren't looking . . . or smelling, or tasting, or enjoying. Disappointment and dissatisfaction set in. "That one just vanished! I'd better have another one." Next the internal critic voice pipes up "What are you thinking? One treat is enough. You know you're trying to lose weight/eat better/stop grazing/etc."

Thus begins the struggle over the simple, biologically natural, pleasurable act of eating. Almost everyone will relate some difficulty they have with food, from an embarrassed confession of an addiction to chocolate to the palpable misery of binging and purging.

How is it that food and eating have become such a common source of unhappiness? And why has it occurred in a country with an abundance of food? The fundamental reason for our imbalance with food and eating is that we've forgotten how to be present as we eat. We eat mindlessly.

Here are a few suggestions for mindful eating “homework.”

(1)   Try taking the first four sips of a cup of hot tea or coffee with full attention.
(2) If you are reading and eating, try alternating these activities, not doing both at once. Read a page, then put the book down and eat a few bites, savoring the tastes, then read another page, and so on.
(3) At family meals, you might ask everyone to eat in silence for the first five minutes, thinking about the many people who brought the food to your plates.
(4) Try eating one meal a week mindfully, alone and in silence. Be creative. For example, could you eat lunch behind a closed office door, or even alone in your car?

Jan Chozen Bays, “Mindful Eating.”

 

 

 

In this email: This week’s reading, Saturday study group reminder, retreat info link.

 

Our Saturday study group will meet this Saturday morning, 10 – 11:30 at the 12South Dharma Center. This week’s topic is “mindfulness.” We begin the meeting with 15 minutes of meditation, then launch into the discussion. This is an excellent  opportunity for conversations about the dharma in a relaxed format while getting to know others who share an interest in Buddhism.  This is an open meeting. There is no cost to attend, but donations are appreciated to help us cover the cost of rent and related expenses.

 

Our spring retreat  flyer has been posted at the One Dharma website. The deadline for retreat deposits is April 30. Here’ the link: http://onedharmanashville.com/gpage1.html

 

This week’s reading:

 

In this email: Thursday night practice reminder, Spring Retreat Information

 

Thursday Practice Night  happens this Thursday, April 2, 6:30 – 7:30 p.m. The session consists of: 40 minutes of sitting with a bell at 20 minutes for those who wish to stretch their legs, Diamond Sutra Chant and 15 minutes of open discussion. This session is appropriate for both new and experienced meditators. If this is your first time meditating with us, please plan to arrive fifteen minutes early for orientation.

 

Spring Retreat, May 14 – 17

Deepening Your Practice

One Dharma Nashville and Nashville Insight are partnering to offer a spring meditation retreat at Penuel Ridge Retreat Center.  The focus of this retreat is “deepening you practice” and is designed for those who wish to participate in the full 3 ½ days of the retreat, arriving between 6:30 and 7:30 the evening of Wednesday May 13 and completing  at 11 a.m. on Sunday May 17.

 

The retreat will include periods of sitting and walking meditation, practice instruction on how to move more deeply into your practice, dharma talks, yoga and optional interviews.  The retreat will be led by Lisa Ernst with contributions from Lee Olsen. 

 

Lisa Ernst began her meditation practice in the late '80's in the Zen Buddhist tradition, studying closely with two Rinzai Zen Masters and attending numerous mediation retreats. Lisa has also studied and practiced in the Theravada tradition since the late 90’s. She is the co-founder of One Dharma Nashville. In 2004 Trudy Goodman, an established teacher in the Insight tradition, gave Lisa authorization to begin teaching.

 

Lee Olsen has been studying and practicing Vipassana Meditation for 19 years, first in the style as taught by S.N. Goenka, a Burmese lay teacher, then in the method of Mahasi Sayadaw.   He has practiced under monastic Vipassana teachers Bhante Rahula, Ashinpaya U Silananda and Ashinpaya U Nyanisara and his current teacher in Nashville, Bhikku Nyanasobhano.

 

 This retreat is being offered without a set fee. However, there will be an opportunity to offer donations for the accommodations including meals, and the teachings. 

 

A deposit of $50 will reserve your space at the retreat and is due no later than Thursday, April 31. Please make your check to One Dharma Nashville and send to: 12South Dharma Center, 2301 12^th Ave South, Suite 202, Nashville, TN 37204. 

Please contact Lisa or Lee with any questions: lisa@..., lee@...