This weekend . . .

. . . was a blast. I got to attend one of the two single-day retreats by Donald Rothberg. He is one of my favorite teachers because he incorporates interactive activities to the day. While I felt that the second day's topic - Keeping Cool In The Fire: Becoming More Skillful With Inner Or Outer Conflict - was more personally relevant, I was only able to attend the Saturday retreat on Emptiness and Compassion. As it turns out, it was a happy accident, as I found the day enlightening and relevant.

I had previously decided the Buddhist concept of emptiness was beyond me, that okay - if I ever have the opportunity to go deep into practice, that I might get the chance to understand this topic somewhat vaguely.

But alas, Donald made the topic very clear. And this abstract concept is paradoxically kind of simple. He defines emptiness as no self without interdependence, meaning that we as individuals and our experiences do not exist without the myriad of other elements that play into/build upon the "self" and its experiences.

I try to come up with examples, but they fall flat, so let's just leave it at that. I feel very grateful to have had the opportunity to spend the day with such loving, compassionate people and to learn so much in so short a time. Plus, I meditated today for forty minutes, which I never do at home. It was a breeze. The day-longs definitely further my practice.

Meanwhile, DH and I attended a party sans kids, which we haven't done in YEARS. It was a blast hanging out with friends where none of us had to change a diaper, settle a dispute, leave at 7 p.m. for bedtime, or wipe a nose.

Today was productive. The kids spent the night at my MIL's house, which meant I was able to work on Rosalind's costume, clean my car, do laundry, go to lunch DH and meditate all without interruption.

I feel very lucky to have the life I have.

Rick Hanson Retreat

I spent Saturday at a daylong retreat hosted by Dharma Zephyr Insight Medidation Community and taught by Dr. Rick Hanson. Hanson is a psychologist who is also a Buddhist practitioner and a contributor to recent research on the brain and meditation. (His web page is wisebrain.org. I suggest everyone check it out.)

The day's talk gave me so much to think about that I don't even know where to start on this blog. After some thought, I decided to start with a theme I focused on a while back as a result of Hanson's newsletter for wisebrain.org: not taking things personally.

A while back, one of the DZ members suggested our sangha do a year of practice, where each one of us takes one suggestion from the Wise Brain bulletin and focus on that one element. I adopted the challenge to not taking things personally.

I think it's important to start this discussion with a caveat on my experience: not taking things personally is like asking myself to never get angry. For me, it is pretty much an impossible task. I did take things personally, but there were moments in which I was able to contemplate my response to a certain stimuli and to try to not take it personally.

On the superficial level, not taking things personally can do wonders for your relationship by establishing a peace that might not otherwise exist. When my husband, for example, asked me if I understood the essay he gave me, I reminded myself to not take things personally. I avoided the normal, negative response I have to his concerns that I don't understand something intellectual. What could have been another terse moment between the two of us turned into a short, not unpleasant discussion.

On a deeper level, not taking things personally is letting go of the self, a Buddhist teaching that not only boggles my mind, but often evades it as well. I do not exist because - really - what am I? As Rick Hanson's partner with the Wise Brain web page, Dr. Rick Mendius explains, ". . . [T]here is no self to be injured, but only the arising and passing of states of mind." If I remember that I am not insulted, but rather there exists an emotion of feeling insulted, I can separate from it. This is good practice at beginning to understand the concept of no self, for me anyway.

A better method of understanding of no self would have been to attend the second day-long retreat. Sunday's topic was No Self and the Brain. From what I hear, it was fascinating.

I could write for a year on topics that emerged in the retreat, but I think I'll cover two more: happiness and brain chemistry. To be continued . . . .

Take Refuge in the Sangha

I've been thinking lately about how grateful I am that I have the local sangha that I have. The people are wonderful, and having the community to share a set of beliefs and discuss practice with is invaluable. I know there are those out there who do not have that luxury, that books and web pages and podcasts are the closest they can get to a sangha. I'm sure that is better than nothing and suffices quite well. Nevertheless, I feel quite lucky and am very grateful for having these good people in my world.

What's Happening?

Our sangha gave ourselves the homework assignment of asking a "radical question." This stemmed from Day 2 of the retreat we had where I had only attended the first one, so it's not all entirely clear to me. Anyway, our homework assignment was to ask ourselves What's happening? at least three times a day. The idea is to help us be more present and to begin an inquiring process that can lead to discovery (I think). If it isn't making sense to you, it's probably because it's still unclear in my own head what I'm talking about, but I'm hoping to learn more.

On a different note, today my friend and I took our daughters to Bell's Tea Cottage in Reno, NV. The kids loved the tea, the provided hats and scarves, and the food. We liked our food, the tea, and the quiet atmosphere. We weren't so excited about the price ($14 for my meal, $8 for DD's). The kids got a PB&J with a small scone and a small plate of candy. Too many sweets even for my lil' sweet tooth. The final decision was that we could have just as much fun with a tea party at home for a much more economical price, although it may be a nice treat for the ladies to go one Sunday for an afternoon of shopping.

Later we met friends at the pool for some tot swim time. I LOVE summer!

It's Not Always So Easy

I have been working on my sangha homework - to not talk about people who aren't in the room. Although I have done some refraining, I could definitely do better. I'm beginning to see why monks live in caves. It's definitely difficult to live the Dharma when you're interacting with the world. Of course, if it were easy, we'd all be enlightened.

I haven't been remembering about the being in the body homework, let alone actually doing it.

I did a short mediation (10 minutes) when I got to work today (Since kids are gone, my schedule is more flexible.). I focused on my intent for the day - to not talk about those not in the room. It helped. I ought to consider moving my meditations to the morning.

Signing out.

May you live in peace and happiness.

My Homework

My sangha is currently working on wise speech. I have two homework assignments:

1. Focus on being in the body. This allows us to think more carefully about the intention behind what we're saying. The goal is to be at 50% in the body, 50% in the conversation.


2. One week not talking about someone not present. This isn't an exercise in how we should all live, but rather an exercise in mindfulness. It makes us more aware of how much we talk about others.

I will be reporting on my homework over the course of the next week.

On a completely separate note, I have had fun playing with my new camera's macro feature. I can get some pretty close pictures. of the week.

Grasping

Today I did the homework assignment I gave the sangha last week - to choose a time when you are wanting something and to not give in to the grasping, rather to contemplate the feeling of wanting.

We were in Marshall's. DD needed some socks. (Good god! Where do they go?) I grabbed a pair of workout pants and top. A few minutes later, I took them out of the cart and returned them, but when I pulled them out of the cart, I noticed they matched so nicely! I felt a growing urge to throw them back into the cart, but fought against it.

It seems silly, I know. But I learned something. I learned that the feeling of desire to acquire something disappears rather quickly. Before I left the store, I had forgotten about the clothes. At home, I didn't sit and brood over how much I wanted those clothes. It was a good reminder to sit through the process of renunciation, especially with the process of acquisition. I will go so far as to say that most of us, me included, give in to these impulse urges to purchase, when if we try to sit them out, we find they are fleeting moments of desire.

Now, Starbucks' hot chocolates. That's another type of desire that doesn't disintegrate. It lingers until I give in. I'll revisit this thought later - need to consider ways to tackle that desiring process.

Not sure how this will end up working out. I wanted to post the document as a pdf file and realized it wouldn't work. So now I'm trying it as a jpeg file to see if it's readable. My sangha is considering a blog, but we want to be able to post pdf files. This is more of a test than anything, but in case you're interested, it is the final version of my hungry ghost outline.

Hungry Ghosts

Here's the outline for my Dharma talk I'll be giving on Monday for the Dharma Zephyr Insight Community. It needs some polishing, but it's a good start, I think. (Sorry for the funky formatting. It didn't transfer well from Word to here.) I'm nervous about doing my first Dharma talk, but I'm looking forward to discussing issues I find so interesting.

Hungry Ghosts: Buddhism and American Consumerism

I. Buddhist teachings relating to consumerism
A. Hungry ghosts – caricature of American culture; the hungry ghost festival
B.Causes of suffering – acquisition does not lead to an end in suffering, the cycle of suffering
C. The ego self – The need to define oneself through one’s acquisitions
D. Interdependence – The interrelationship between one’s actions and all other beings
E. General mindfulness – Americans consume mindlessly; mindfulness teaches awareness of one’s consumption habits
F. The four noble truths -

Problems with consumption
Global
i. Globalization – causes decline in culture and self-esteem of oneself and one’s culture
ii. Environmental concerns
iii. War
iv. Increase of poverty
Societal
i. Priorities
ii. Religion
iii. War
Personal
i. Spiritual neglect
ii. Continuation of suffering
iii. Time
iv. Addiction
1. To acquisition
2. To other addictions

Solutions:
1. Focus on the desire – when we seek an acquisition, it isn’t the item we want; it’s the feeling of satisfaction we get from the acquisition. This is transitory, and focusing on this will help us let go of the desire to consume
2. Engaged Buddhism
3. Small-scale activism
4. “Practicing greater generosity” – Joseph Goldstein: “The practice of generosity can serve as a corrective to addictive consumerism.”

Other relative issues
1. Marketing the Dharma
2. Consumption of knowledge